Staked!

by Candace Wondrak

  “High-time to end this reunion, don’t you think?” the woman spoke lowly, dragging a sharp nail along Koath’s neck. Koath did nothing to stop her. His skin parted, a deep red line forming where her nail was. Blood spewed forth, mixing with that already on the ground.

  “No,” I cried, rushing toward her. But by the time I reached where she was, I was no longer in the house. I was in the town square, where town hall was. I recognized it from a few drives to the supermarket.

  But in this world, it was very different. Cars sat, overturned and smashed, long unused in the streets. Telephone poles were knocked over, leaning on roofs of nearby buildings. Cracks grew in the pavement. It was overgrown, like Chernobyl after thirty years.

  That wasn’t what caught my attention, though.

  It was the sheer volume of Nightwalkers that wandered mindlessly through its streets. The horde we fought at the prison was a mere fraction of those who still walked the city streets.

  I swore loudly.

  Why did I have the nagging feeling that we’d have to fight our way through this?

  The next morning, or, more correctly, when I woke up, I made my way downstairs to find that the guys were pretty much ready to go. Gabriel stood by himself, sullen and broody. John sat curled in a chair, reading some book. Raphael was in the kitchen, sitting alone, staring at his dagger resting on the table.

  I sat beside him, taking my time to ask, “You want to tell me how you did that blue-glowing thing? Not going to lie, it was cool. Can you teach me how to do it? Because apparently normal weapons do nothing against Daywalkers.”

  Raphael smiled a bit. “Unfortunately, no. I cannot teach you how to purify a Daywalker. Not in the same way, at least.”

  His response stunned me, and it took me a while to clarify, “Purify? I’m a Purifier. It’s what I do—about the only thing I can do well, actually.”

  “You were born into this fight, but I can assure you, the fight to purify Demons and cleanse the world has been transpiring since the very beginning of time.”

  I sighed. “Why are you always so…” I couldn’t think of the right word to use, so I stopped.

  “So what?” Raphael prodded, raising his eyebrows.

  As I looked at him, I couldn’t help but remember how I found him attractive in my world. Sure, he wasn’t bad in this world, but the long hair I just wasn’t into. Then again, in my world he always wore a priest’s outfit, so what did that say about me? That I had some deep, unresolved issues about my life?

  Or maybe that I was a teenage girl whose hormones sometimes got the better of her, in spite of everything I did to hedge them.

  “The way you talk. It’s just…weird.”

  “How very eloquent of you,” he teased me.

  “My point exactly,” I muttered, rolling my eyes.

  Raphael stood, sheathing his dagger on his hip as he said, “What is life without a bit of mystery?” He walked into the front room, where the tension between Gabriel and John was palpable. Neither man acknowledged it, however. Both pretended the other didn’t exist.

  I followed him, saying mostly to myself, “I’ve had enough mysteries to last a lifetime.”

  Raphael was the one who broke the tension in the front room, saying, “We should head out. If we move fast, we’ll make it to Haven within a few hours. With any luck, we’ll get the help we need.”

  John closed his book, shoving it in his shirt. As we began the long trek, taking the side streets, I found myself walking beside him, studying him. I still couldn’t believe the difference between the two Johns. This one…let’s just say if I didn’t already have bad history with mine, I would’ve fallen hard for this John.

  Very, very hard.

  “Looking forward to seeing your sister again?” I asked, trying to fill the void of silence that our group carried.

  All John did was frown slightly. “I don’t know.”

  “How long has it been since you’ve seen each other?”

  “I don’t know,” he repeated. “Years.”

  My eyebrows furrowed as I was slow to say, “You don’t seem happy that we’re going to her for help.”

  “I...left when everything went down, when we lost Kirk.” John side glanced at me, expression heavier than I wanted. This was supposed to be small talk, not a doom and gloom, the-weight-of-the-world-was-on-my-shoulders talk. “I couldn’t bear to stay. When she looked at me, I could tell she wished it was I who was taken, and not Kirk.”

  That was a terrible thing to think, putting all the blame on himself. “I don’t believe that for a second. Alyssa would never think anything like that.”

  “Did I ever tell you how we found Alyssa?” He changed the subject.

  “No.”

  John then launched into the tale of how he and Kirk traveled the globe for nearly two hundred years, leaving behind their estate and the broken idol that cursed them. All the while, Kirk had been keeping track of the group of gypsies that created the curse. Sometime in the nineties, they made their way back to the United States. The group of gypsies had all but died out over the decades. Of course, it had been Kirk’s hope that eventually one would agree to reverse the curse, to make them human once more.

  One day, Kirk went to the home of a supposed gypsy descendant, and found a woman in the bathtub, blue and bloated. She drowned in her own water. With further inspection, Kirk found the needles. Overdosed. He was about to leave when he heard crying. In the bedroom, on the floor sat a young girl, no more than a year or two. He took her home, unable to leave the child there and call the police. At first, it was for selfish reasons. Kirk hoped that she would grow into a Witch, so powerful that she could reverse the curse.

  “But as time went by,” I finished for him with a smile, “you both realized she was the little sister you both never knew you needed.”

  John sighed. “Sappy, isn’t it?”

  I shrugged once, saying, “Maybe, but she did turn out to be a Witch, and from what I’ve seen, a good one. Why didn’t you ever tell her to try reversing your curse?”

  “Oh, she has. Many times. Despite all the power she has, it isn’t enough.” John closed his eyes, his lips a thin line. “It seems I’m stuck like this.” He got quiet, probably thinking of his brother, of how Raphael, of all people, managed to purify him for good. Was he wishing that Raphael purified him, too?

  “I’m sure Gabriel would help out,” I joked, receiving a harsh glance from John. “What, too soon? Sorry.”

  It took him a while to say, “It’s fine. I’ve been assured that Kirk is in a better place now. If only the last twenty years of his life hadn’t been torture.” John walked on, catching up with Raphael. I slowed to a halt at the mention of how much time had passed.

  Twenty years?

  John and Raphael looked as if they hadn’t aged a single day, minus the hair bit, while Gabriel looked maybe six or eight years older. Definitely not twenty.

  “Twenty years?” I echoed as Gabriel passed me.

  The blonde man spoke, “Time passes differently in Hell. It felt like a dozen lifetimes.”

  “Well, I hope everything turns out,” I muttered as we continued on our way.

  For all of us.

  Eventually, after a lot of walking, we reached a desolate area of town. Back in my world, it was where semi-trucks full of stock would park and fill up. The warehouse district. Reminded me of that game Gabriel used to play many years ago: Grand Theft Auto.

  We stopped in front of a garage door. John was the one who went to lift the door, using his Daywalker strength to easily heave it up. As he lifted it, he muttered, “Are you ready? Let’s hope so.”

  Once it was open, I saw nothing inside but an empty warehouse. “That’s it?” I asked, disappointed. “With a name like Haven, I expected it to be more…”

  As we walked inside, past the barrier of the warehouse door, the inside suddenly transformed. Instead of the eternal night that plagued this world, the inside held a sun, hanging brightly in an afternoon’s
position. Streets and houses lined up behind a barricade. It was a mini city, magically situated inside the warehouse, protected by a cloaking spell, if I had to guess.

  “Like this,” I finally finished, right as two people stood behind the barricade, aiming heavy assault rifles at us. A man and a woman, not many years apart. Both were a bright blonde; one had the darkest eyes I’d ever seen, the other a clear, azure blue.

  I knew them. I knew I knew them, but for the life of me, I couldn’t place them. Maybe it was the wrinkles around their eyes, wrinkles that weren’t there in my world. Or maybe it was the shiny black guns they held.

  “Don’t move!” the man yelled, his aim steady.

  I looked around me, noticing that Gabriel hadn’t yet entered. The door behind us wavered in and out of the cloaking spell, his presence not yet known to the two pointing guns at us.

  “Why you think you can just waltz back in here, uninvited,” the woman began, practically hissing venom, “blows my mind. And bringing her? You’re lucky we didn’t pull the trigger instantly.”

  Her harsh welcome was interrupted by another woman who appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. She walked around the barricade, now on the same side as us. Her hair was long and dark, the same color as her eyes. Her hands were held behind her back, an air of knowing about her.

  “That is not who you think it is, Claire,” the woman spoke, her voice confident.

  Claire? I was stunned at first, but then I saw her younger self, aged about twenty years. Her short hair was insanely long, and the stern expression she always gave me in my world was mimicked in hers.

  If that was Claire, then I instantly knew who the man was. Steven. Her uncle.

  The dark-haired woman studied me. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “Alyssa,” I whispered, swallowing hard. She’d grown out of the quiet, barely audible phase and into a poised, assured, beautiful woman. If that’s what twenty years did, it wasn’t too bad.

  I hoped I would live that long.

  She gave me a small smile, motioning behind me. “Tell the last of your group to enter.”

  “I can see why you’re nicknamed the Prophet,” I said.

  Behind me, Gabriel entered. His appearance riled up the already irate Claire, who muttered a string of curse words and pulled the trigger on her rifle, sending a barrage of bullets at Gabriel. He gave her one look, stopping the bullets with whatever power he held without moving a muscle.

  Claire reloaded, frowning as she spoke to Steven, “Why aren’t you firing? Can’t you feel what he is? He’s not welcome here.”

  “If the Prophet was expecting them,” Steven was slow to speak, “that means she was expecting him, too.”

  Claire began to swear in response, but Alyssa held up a hand, saying, “As long as he is truly with you, I have no qualms with him.” Her eyebrows lifted, waiting for my answer.

  With a quick look at Gabriel, I assured her, “He’s with us.”

  “What a ragtag bunch,” Alyssa mused, turning her head to her brother. “It’s been a

  while—” She paused, moving to Raphael. “—for all of us. Follow me.” She led us around the barricade and through the streets.

  “How’ve you been?” John asked of his sister, fingers strumming the string on his bow. Raphael was oddly silent, considering the fact that he and Alyssa were, God help me, at one point together.

  “Good” was Alyssa’s simple reply. As we walked, people stopped and stared, those under Alyssa’s protection. She had a good thing going here, and I hoped our appearance wouldn’t break it. “Let’s get down to business. I know why you’re here, and I know you need the staff to get back to your world.”

  “The staff, yeah,” I said, moving beside her. “We came to ask you for a locator spell.”

  “I don’t need to do a locator spell,” Alyssa spoke, slowly coming to a halt between two houses that seemed, for the most part, empty. “I know where the staff is. Getting to it will be very difficult.”

  My hopes soared. “Where is it?”

  It took Alyssa a while to say, “I’ll tell you in the morning. For now, gather your strength. Get some sleep tonight. Tomorrow is another day. Use these homes. I’ve had them readied for you.” Her nose upturned, and she sniffed. “A shower would do you all some good.”

  At that, I nonchalantly sniffed my armpit. I was a tad on the smelly side, and I was almost happy enough to hear they had running water that I forgot about the tomorrow part. Almost.

  “Why not just tell us now?” I asked.

  “There is…something I have to make. Some business to take care of. Spells to reinforce.” Alyssa smiled as she turned her dark gaze to Raphael, who had remained oddly silent. The man was never the silent type. “It is good to see you, Raphael.” And with that, she left.

  Raphael looked as if he wanted to say something in return, but by the time he opened his mouth, she was already gone. He glanced to the sun, an hour or two from setting, and said, “We should do as she said. Undoubtedly, she knows best.”

  As Raphael wandered to the left house, I asked both John and Gabriel, “Are we safe here?”

  “Yes” both men said in unison. After they spoke, they shot each other a distasteful glare, as if it were the worst thing in the world to actually agree on something. Gabriel scoffed and disappeared in a grey smoke.

  I muttered a single word “Men” before entering the other house.

  Men were ridiculous.

  No exceptions.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven – Raphael

  It was strange, seeing her again. It felt like yesterday when we were together, happy, blissful, even, oblivious to the dying world around us. All because Kassandra Niles died. If only the dead remained dead. In my experience, they didn’t.

  Perhaps that was why it was hard to swallow that there was another Kass from another world. A Kass that was whole, one who was still herself. When magic was involved, nothing made sense. That much I was well-accustomed to.

  I sat in the upstairs bedroom, looking out the window. For a warehouse, the yards were certainly beautiful. The grass couldn’t have been greener. Alyssa had never been more powerful. She had changed so much, yet I felt the same, as if after all these years, I hadn’t changed one bit.

  There was a single knock on the door, and I sensed who it was. “Come in,” I spoke without taking my eyes off the window.

  John stepped in, carrying the journal that held so many of my secrets…the one mistake I regret making to this very day. From his heavy expression, I could tell he finished it. I knew he was shocked. Who knew that I could hide things so well?

  “I, uh,” John was having trouble finding the right words to say, fiddling with the journal’s border, its edges fraying and decaying. “I don’t really know what to say.”

  “You do not need to say anything,” I told him, honest.

  John smirked, surprising me as he shook his head. “It explains a lot, actually. Why you’re…like this.” He pointed, encircling me with an imaginary pointer. He thought the journal held my entire past.

  It did not.

  That small, seemingly insignificant book held only one chapter in my life. I had too many to count. Too many that were not yet put down in words.

  John carefully set the journal down on the end table near the bed. “It doesn’t explain how you do what you do, though. How you can purify greater Demons. Did she…do something to you? To make you like this?”

  “She did, but it is not Leliana who is the reason I can purify.” I closed my eyes, reliving my past in a vivid, fast flash. As I opened them, I finally glanced to John as I added, “There were two hands in my creation. Leliana was only one.”

  “And the other?” John asked me, desperate for the answer I hadn’t given him these past few years.

  A gentle smile crossed my face. “You would not believe me if I told you.”

  John sighed, not happy with my response but knowing he would get nothing more of me today. He went to leave, but lingered by
the door, one more question weighing on his mind. “At the end…did you do it?”

  Ah, there it was. My one regret.

  “Yes,” I whispered quietly, still disappointed in myself after all this time. “I did.”

  “I’m sure you did what you thought was right at the time,” John tried assuring me.

  But I had already wrestled with that particular regret nearly my entire life. I knew what I had done was wrong. There was no excuse for it. Revenge was never the answer. It was a human mistake, one I had paid for dearly.

  With that, John left.

  No. I did not do what was right at the time, and I knew it. I knew it was wrong, but I was enraged at my love. How I hated her as the fires swallowed her. I watched the entire act, tossing the journal in the flames so that no one would ever read its contents.

  Yet here it sat in this very room. I had a nagging suspicious who had done it, who had taken the journal from the flames before it was completely devoured, but I hadn’t ever confronted him. I avoided him, for he was the invisible hand behind Leliana’s behavior.

  I would come face to face with him soon enough, though.

  “Alone and pensive, as always,” a soft voice spoke, disrupting my moody silence.

  At her presence, I found myself standing and putting on a façade, the same one I usually fronted: that everything was okay. That everything would be okay, in due time. Given all the time in the world, however, and I was not certain if that was true.

  Alyssa gave me a warm smile as she moved closer, gazing steadily at me as if nothing had changed. As if she still loved me, even after I broke her heart by leaving. She was not the vengeful Witch John had thought she’d be. She was understanding.

  “You haven’t changed at all,” Alyssa said, the smile slowly falling from her lips. “I wish I could say the same of me.” A long, pregnant pause filled the space between us until she murmured, “It really is good to see you again, Raff.”