by Izzy Shows
That had never happened, but somehow, she had always kept up the hope that it would happen today. He always found her, no matter where she hid, as if he had a sixth sense that followed her no matter where she ran or where she hid.
I heard the heavy footsteps coming down the hallway, and a strong desire to manifest and cover her little form came over me, so much that it hurt that I couldn't do it. If only I could spare myself this pain, could take the beating at this age instead of having to carry the scars on my soul that would come from it.
The physical marks didn't matter, not really. It was the effect they had on me years later that were the real horror.
She wasn't all gone yet. She still had hope in her heart that there were kind people out there in the world who wouldn't hurt her, that maybe her next foster parents would be kind to her, that someone would come along and save her.
It's not going to happen, Blair. You have to let go of that hope. It'll hurt less when you finally give up.
I wanted to tell her that, but I knew she wouldn't be able to hear me. And even though I wanted to give her that warning, I wanted even more to be able to intervene and stop this from happening so she wouldn't have to give up that hope. So she wouldn't go through her life jumping every time someone raised their voice, so someone setting down a laundry basket a little too hard wouldn't make her cry, so she could form lasting friendships and not worry that those people were going to turn on her at any moment.
I wanted to spare her the life I had lived, but I knew that wasn't possible.
The door to the broom closet was yanked open, and there he stood. My foster father.
He was a big, ugly man with a thick belly and bulging eyes that zeroed in on her faster than should have been possible. His lips peeled back in a snarl, and he reached in and dragged her out by her hair.
She didn't make a sound. She knew that would only enrage him further, and if she kept quiet and took the beating, it would be over faster.
I tried to hold myself away from it all, to keep my emotions removed from the scene happening in front of me as his fists fell upon her again and again, breaking her arm and blackening her eye. She was already bleeding at this point, and I knew that meant it would be over soon.
He didn't like to get her blood on his hands; she was filthy in his eyes, and he didn't want her to contaminate him.
As hard as I tried not to be affected, I couldn't help but remember my feelings of hopelessness and despair when I was that age, thinking I would never be happy. As much as that little girl held out hope that there was a place in the world where things weren't like this, it didn't stop the way she felt when the beatings were happening. The thought that she deserved this somehow. The thought that she would never get out of this, and this life of misery was all that she was ever going to know. And an even worse thought, that he would kill her this time, and it would all be over before she even got a chance to live.
It was as if I was living all of it again. The feelings were that strong, and for a moment I allowed myself to drown in them.
And then I stood firm.
This wasn't my life anymore, and that little girl had been right. There were kind people in the world who wouldn't hurt her, even if she was eventually going to move on to more foster families who would abuse or neglect her in one form or another. Even if she didn't find them until she was an adult, she was going to find people better than she could have imagined.
I had made a family for myself out of friends I didn't deserve, but they loved me, and I loved them.
I was happy now, even if my life was hard.
This memory had no hold over me.
Ten
As if that had triggered a release, I woke up on the floor of the Shrine. There was still a lingering sense of hopelessness and despair, but it was easy to turn away from.
I knew who I was and who I wasn't, and I knew no one could beat me like that anymore. I wasn't a little girl who couldn't defend herself, and no matter what I'd thought at the time, I didn't deserve the beatings I had been given.
He was the monster, not me.
"Your life has been hard," the voice boomed inside my mind, causing me to wince.
"I never said it wasn't," I said, a little defiant.
"You have had many trials to reach this point in your life, and they are not over yet," it said.
That didn't make me feel too good. The voice was right: I'd been through a hell of a lot in my life, and I didn't really want to go through any more.
But I would. I was a strong woman. I could handle it if I had to.
Besides, I had a family now. I had people I could lean on when the going got tough. I had people who cared about me.
"I can handle it," I said. "I always do."
"I believe you. You are stronger than many give you credit for. Your offering was good. Your spirit will do this Shrine well and will protect the people of my village for a long while."
"Good," I said, smiling faintly. "I'm glad I could help."
"Your help is not yet done. You still must stand against those who would harm my people."
"I know. I wouldn't dream of leaving them at a time like this," I said. "Don't worry about it."
"It is good that you are steadfast. I will leave you with a final warning: the risk you have taken in making this offering."
It paused, and I felt a sense of dread gathering in the pit of my stomach. I didn't want to hear what it was going to say. I wanted to tell it to let me go on not having to worry.
Wouldn't it be better not to know what you stood to lose?
"Your memories will be your risk, child. Should you fail to defend the Shrine, you will lose your memories of the past four years. All you have learned, all you have come to know, will be forgotten."
Panic seized me.
My friends! I couldn't forget my friends. That would be the worst thing in the world. They were my family. They were all that was good in my life. I didn't know how I could possibly go on if I had to leave them behind, if I had to forget all about them.
I didn't give a fuck about losing my knowledge of magic. That wasn't what was most important to me. But losing all of my friends—losing Emily and Shawn, and not remembering Aidan and how much he meant to me…
I would forget Mal too.
It doesn't matter. He hurt me, and I should be glad to forget him.
But that didn't stop my heart from aching at the idea of never knowing him again, of not getting the chance to find out why he had done what he did, of not getting the closure I needed.
I did need it. I needed to look him in the eye and demand he tell me what possible reason he could have had. I needed to hear from his mouth what he thought was a good enough excuse for hurting me that badly.
And maybe I needed to decide if it was forgivable or not. But that should be my decision to make. It shouldn't be taken away from me by something else.
I didn't want to forget him, just like I didn't want to forget any of the others.
I couldn't lose my memories. They were all I had in this world.
But what was done was done, and there was no going back. I had already given of myself to the Shrine.
I would just have to make sure I didn't fail.
Eleven
When I stepped out of the Shrine, the sun had almost fully set. There was still a little brightness left in the sky, but it was dropping faster than I would have liked.
I felt my muscles tighten and that itch at the back of my neck that meant a fight was coming soon. I'd been in more than enough of those to know when one was coming. I could taste in in the air, feel it in my bones, and somehow, I never felt any more ready than I had the first time.
You were pretty damn not ready for it the first time. Do you remember Tyburn Tree? Do you remember falling down in the crowd of undead and having Emily yank you out to keep you alive?
I shuddered at the memory. Yeah, that had been a bad fight, but I'd made it out with my life, although just barely, thanks to demo
nic magic I didn't have any right to use.
Demonic magic that I didn't have anymore, thanks to Mal. He'd taken it away from me, at my request, and now I had only myself to rely on. I was fine with that, but it certainly made things different when I thought about what I was going up against.
It wasn't fair to compare any fight to Tyburn Tree, not when I didn't have the same tools at my disposal.
Although, all things considered, I might be about evenly matched with my past self from Tyburn Tree tonight. That night, I'd had nothing but the weak magic Aidan had taught me, the protective charm he'd given me to wear around my neck—which had long since been exhausted, but I still wore it to this day—and the demon magic Mal had given me.
Tonight, I had an oversized t-shirt, the tattoos on my back and ankle, and the magic I had learned during the past four years. I wasn't sure what I'd learned could rival the demonic power I'd been given back then, but when you stacked it up with the tattoos, I probably came out about even.
That should have made me feel good. At Tyburn Tree I had taken down a horde of undead, plus the Colossal Undead. That giant thing had been made up of hundreds of animated corpses, and it had just about eaten me whole. I had taken it out with just a touch of my hand to the mark Mal had placed on my wrist.
I hadn't wanted to do it, but it had worked all the same.
If I could do that, surely I could handle this.
I hoped so. The Slaugh sounded bad, and the Dullahan sounded nigh on impossible to tackle, but I was determined to give this my all so long as I still had breath in my body.
Then darkness claimed the night. Not your average, ordinary darkness; the darkness that only comes on Halloween. Or Samhain, as these people called it.
There's something wrong with the darkness on that night. You can feel the veil around the world slipping away, letting in creatures that shouldn't be here to feast on the weak and the old.
That was what I was standing in now, and I wished I could hide in my house instead.
I couldn't believe parents took their kids out this. I'd never gone trick or treating in my life. I'd certainly wanted to when I was little, but now that I was grown up and knew about all the awful things that went bump in the night, I couldn't understand how anyone could ignore the dangers around them and take their children out to play.
But I didn't have any more time to think about that.
The first of the Slaugh came swooping through the air, taking the form of things that didn't look like any sort of bird I'd ever seen, although they had the general shape of a bird. They were skeletal, with decaying flesh hanging from them, and their wings were too long for their bodies. At the end of each wing were several hooked claws, ones I knew could scratch my eyes out with one swipe. Their beaks were horrific as well, more like a curved blade than any kind of bird's beak I'd ever seen.
They came screaming through the night, flying as a giant pack, and flew straight for the homes of the villagers, ignoring the Shrine for the most part.
Without hesitation, I coiled my power in my hand.
"Incendium!" I cried, and flung my hand in the direction of the flock, and a gout of flame spewed forth to encase several of them.
Shrieks that couldn't have come from any living animal echoed through the air, and for a moment they ignored me as they swooped down on the houses. They howled when they came up against the doors and windows, repelled before they could touch them.
The wards were keeping them at bay, I saw with some relief.
Good. I wouldn't have to worry about whether or not the villagers were safe while I battled the Slaugh.
But that had a downside to it, too. Realizing that they couldn't get to the villagers, the bird-things turned on the only victim they could find.
Me.
I gulped down a breath and pulled my power into my hands. I would have preferred to fight with ice—it was by far my strongest ability—but fire was better for attacks like this. If I wanted to hit a bigger area, I would need to use fire.
Giant spouts of flame poured out of my hands as I fired off spell after spell, barely beating back the Slaugh as they came at me. For every one I felled, three more took its place.
There was no end to them, not that I could see, and I wasn't going to be able to hold them back forever.
I couldn't even hold all of them off right now.
Three broke past my barrier of flames, their bladed beaks tearing into the unprotected skin on my arms and legs.
I bit right through my lip, so determined was I not to make a sound.
"Glacio," I snapped, and icicles jutted out of my skin, spiking through the Slaugh that had come at my body. Two of them fell away as the ice pierced their hearts, but one of them got stabbed straight through and stayed there on the ice, close to my body.
It was dead, but I still wasn't happy about it sticking around.
Not that I could worry about that. I had more of them to contend with.
The Slaugh gave the undead I'd fought at Tyburn Tree and the vampires I'd fought with Dudley a run for their money. There were so many of them, and they kept breaking through and tearing at my skin until I couldn't keep track of the wounds, and every time I killed one, it seemed like many more filled the gap.
It didn't help that every spell hurt. Magic is a damned painful process. If you can funnel it into a focus to use later, as I do with my wands and staff, it's fine and dandy. But when you use pure magic, pulling it from deep within yourself and pushing it out to fry every single nerve in its path, it hurts like a son of a bitch.
My power reserves were dropping, my vision was starting to blur, and I couldn't help the panic that had set in. I needed to get myself together, but I couldn't think of what to do. There were just so fucking many of them!
I shot off another gout of flame and fell to my knees, gasping for air from the pain I'd brought on myself by trying to get the spell off.
The moment of relief cost me. Five of the Slaugh came at me, followed by what seemed like hundreds more, and the next thing I knew, I was on the ground, bladed beaks breaking into my skin and hooked claws tearing at my torso and limbs.
Agony erupted through me, and no matter how I struggled, I couldn't get them to go away.
I sobbed, a broken sound that tore at my throat, and thought about giving up.
I'm going to die like this. The Shrine's going to fall. These people are going to die.
I'm a failure.
But I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't let these people down. They had put their trust in me, put their lives in my hands, and I needed to do good by them. I had to do something, had to stop this fight from going south.
My breath was coming in ragged gasps now, and my vision was beginning to go a little black around the edges. I could feel the pull of unconsciousness, begging me to give in to the pain and let it all go.
To die.
But I wouldn't give in to these fuckers, no matter how much it hurt, no matter how much I might want to.
I slammed my fist into a Slaugh, punching it off me, and brought my other arm up into an uppercut to the one that tried to take its place, battling to get up to a kneeling position. I dragged a foot under me and pushed myself to my feet, paying no attention to how much it cost me, to the many new wounds the Slaugh inflicted as I wasted time standing instead of fighting.
"Colosseus…peruro!" I screamed, spreading my arms wide above me. The power ripped through me, burning every nerve in my body, unleashing pain unlike any I'd ever known. I staggered, fighting to keep up the spell and not let the blackness claim me. If I did, if I let the pain of the spell overcome me, the spell would drop and the Slaugh would take me.
The fire that rocketed out of me was terrifying. The blaze erupted higher than the Shrine behind me, and for a moment I couldn't see the sky. Everything around me was fire. I was on fire, though the flames couldn't hurt me because they were my own creation.
Every inch of my body was burning, inside and out, and all around me ther
e was fire.
Time seemed like a figment of my imagination. I couldn't tell you how long I kept up the flames, if minutes had passed, or hours. I couldn't even be sure that the night hadn't passed. The flames were too bright and too overwhelming for me to see the sky.
At last, when I felt that I could take no more, when my vision was nothing more than a small tunnel, I dropped the spell, falling to my knees again as I panted, trying to catch my breath and fight back the exhaustion that swept through me.
I'd overreached. I'd used up too much power, and now I was going to pay the price.
No, I can't. This isn't over. I can't fall yet.
With a groan, I forced my eyes to stay open, though it was hard-won.
"Vis," I muttered, calling on the strength and energy contained in the tattoo on my ankle. It flooded through me, magic providing the power I needed to stay awake.
I was living on borrowed time, but I would take what I could get.
Wait. Nothing's attacking me.
I frowned, blinking rapidly to clear the blackness from my eyes so I could see the area around me again, and when it all came back into focus, I saw the bodies of the Slaugh on the ground around me. What flesh there had been on their skeletal bodies had been burnt to a crisp. Several of them were still flying overhead, but they were beating a hasty retreat.
I grinned fiercely. "Yeah, fuckers. Get out of here. This place is protected."
It would be a lie if I said I wasn't damned proud of myself in that moment for doing what needed to be done to protect the Shrine. I'd done it. I'd beaten back the Slaugh.
Dragging in breath after breath, I crawled to the door of the Shrine and turned over to sit down in an ungraceful heap. I didn't have the strength to lower myself to a sitting position gently, as I normally would. I threw myself toward the ground and was satisfied when I landed on my bum.
I raked a hand through my hair, feeling the stickiness of the blood that had soaked into it, and allowed myself a moment to relax. 'Exhausted' doesn't even begin to cover how I felt, even with the strength I'd borrowed from the tattoo. I had taken all that was left in it, draining it completely, but even that had only been enough to keep me conscious.