Her Lying Days Are Done

by Robert J. Crane

  No sunlight in here, though, the blackout curtains darkening the room.

  Iona had curled up in a corner with a book. She spared me only a glance until she realized what I was doing and returned to her book.

  I picked my way over and sat down on the floor beside the couch, resting my head on the shoulder of Mill’s undamaged arm. I wished I could take comfort from him breathing, but he didn’t breathe, so that was out. And his skin was as cold as stone.

  I lay there for a while, wishing I could get him to open his eyes and look at me again. Why did I keep feeling like this was going to be the last time that I ever looked at him? Why couldn’t I shake the feeling that no matter what I did, it wouldn’t be enough?

  Because it wouldn’t be. Either Mill would die, or Draven would. And Draven wasn’t exactly easy pickings.

  I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to leave him. Not now. Not when it was possible that these were the last days, hours, moments, we had together. Who even knew, now that the sorcerers who had done this were dead?

  It wasn’t fair. None of it was. I'd only had a few short weeks with him. And now he was about to be ripped away from me. None of it made any sense.

  What I wanted…what I needed… none of it mattered.

  All that mattered now was that I stayed with him so that he wasn’t alone.

  And honestly? I didn’t want to be alone, either. So I settled in against him and fell asleep on his shoulder.

  Chapter 22

  “Cassandra?”

  I heard the voice, but it was distant, far away.

  It was dark. I was warm, comfortable. Something soft was wrapped around me.

  “Cassandra…?”

  I smiled as I snuggled down more. Come on, Mom. Just five more minutes. I took a shower last night before bed so I could sleep in this morning. It’s fine, I’ll have plenty of time to get ready.

  “Cassandra!”

  My eyes snapped open, and I blinked furiously, darkness surrounding me even awake.

  There was a hand on my shoulder, which I quickly realized was Lockwood’s, as was the voice.

  My head was throbbing. I had fallen asleep with a lumpy couch pillow under my head, and someone had wrapped a frilly, thin blanket around me. I brushed it away, sitting up. “What’s going on?” I asked.

  I looked around and my heart sank.

  Mill was on the couch behind me, looking more like a corpse than a vampire.

  The heaviness that I had been carrying with me returned full force. I had been so blissfully unaware for the seconds before my brain caught up with me, reminding me with roaring sirens and pumping adrenaline that everything was wrong, nothing was good, and Mill was going to die.

  “How long…was I asleep?” I asked, rubbing my bleary eyes.

  “About twelve hours,” he said. “We barely slept in Faerie, and then you came home to this particularly long night...” He leaned in a little more closely. “I may have cast a spell to help you to sleep a bit more soundly.”

  I frowned, but I wasn’t ungrateful. I knew I was going to need my strength for whatever was coming next. “So I slept through the whole day?”

  He nodded.

  A strong scent of ginger and garlic wafting in from the kitchen. “Oh man, Xandra’s parents—” I said, trying to get to my feet.

  Lockwood shushed me and eased me back down to my makeshift bed on the floor. “Easy. They’re fine. Events have been...explained...to them. After a fashion.”

  “I take it you took a wide pass on the true details of the vampires and Faerie stuff?”

  “Naturally,” he said with a gentle smile. He sat down beside me on the floor and took a deep breath. “But I did wake you with purpose, Cassandra. We need to talk.”

  I didn’t care for those words. Especially not now, when everything was already as bad as it was. Images flashed across my mind of hordes of vampires and werewolves. They towered over me, their teeth snapping shut like a mousetrap. The vampires, their eyes gleaming red, teeth drenched in blood. The witches with their cackling, the sound of their limbs being ripped from their bodies…

  I tried to swallow the bile rising in my throat. “What is it?”

  “Mill is...out,” he said in a gentle tone. “I have not been able to stir him for some time. His veins are green and they run all over his body. He has been moaning in his sleep…”

  In other words, he was getting worse.

  “This is a very dark magic,” he said. “Very dark indeed.”

  I turned and looked at Mill. I could see what Lockwood was talking about. His veins were like emerald spiderwebs across his skin. Every ten seconds or so, the veins pulsed with a dull green light.

  “Your father made a brief examination, and… well, if he was holding out any doubts about your tales, I think he truly believes you, if that helps anything.”

  I couldn't imagine that was very pleasant for Dr. Howell. Looking for a heartbeat, finding none. Checking temperature, finding he was as cold as a cadaver.

  “I… I really didn’t want to tell you this, but…” Lockwood said.

  “What?” I asked. “Just tell me, please.”

  Lockwood focused his green eyes on me, so bright. “He has two days, Cassandra. Perhaps less.”

  It was like he had taken a hammer and struck me right in the forehead with it. Why couldn’t I get good news for once? At least when I didn’t know how much time he had, there was some weird hope that maybe he could last long enough that we could find an alternative cure somewhere, somehow. Maybe the spell would just… Wear off.

  But it was all wishful thinking, and I had known, deep down in my soul, that this was happening, for real. It wasn't some illusory lie that would vanish given enough time. I just didn’t want to admit it.

  Two days.

  I'd been a fortunate kid. I hadn’t lost many family members in my life. My grandparents on my dad’s side had both passed away when I was young, and I barely remembered them. My mom’s dad died when she was a little girl, and her mom lived with her brother back in New York still. There was some distance there, and I hadn’t seen her in years.

  The only time that I had really been faced with death was when my aunt had been killed by a drunk driver. It had hit us out of nowhere. The phone ringing in the middle of the night is the scariest thing to wake up to; those phone calls are never good.

  I still remembered the next few days very clearly. Sitting around the living room with my cousins and aunt and uncle, Mom and Dad, listening to the funeral director talk to us about the service, the arrangements. Watching as Mom and her sister picked out an outfit for her to wear in the casket. I had to help choose the earrings she wore.

  I couldn’t do it. I ran to the bathroom to vomit instead.

  I always knew that eventually, I would have to face the death of someone close to me, but…

  I was seventeen years old. I was too young to deal with this kind of crap.

  Especially since it was my boyfriend.

  Then again… I was far from a normal seventeen-year-old, wasn’t I? I'd gotten myself mixed up with vampires and werewolves and witches...oh my.

  All I could do was stare at Lockwood, helpless and hopeless.

  “Well…what can we do?” I asked. “There’s got to be something, right?” I could almost taste the desperation, I knew it. Stupidly so. I could hear it in my words. And it didn’t matter how much I wanted things to change. Desire alone would do nothing.

  Lockwood frowned, a crease appearing in his brow. “I suggest we make him as comfortable as possible...and prepare for the inevitable.”

  “Just keep stacking on the pain, Lockwood,” I said, tact out the window. “You’re doing great so far. Why don’t you rip my heart out of my chest while you’re at it?”

  He flinched, green eyes fluttering, losing some of their brightness. He said nothing, though.

  “That's it?” I asked. “Nothing else?” I reached out, seizing his lapel. “There has to be another way.”

  “I
understand the spell,” Lockwood said, staring past me at Mill’s arm, which was draped over his body on the couch. “I can see plainly how they did it. Now knowing the origin, it makes sense to me. However…” He sighed, shaking his head. “I cannot reverse it. It is not my branch of magic. This is Earth magic, and while I understand the concept, it as familiar to me as a fish is with the sky.”

  I sighed, leaning back against the couch. I could feel Mill’s shoulder behind me, leeching some of my heat, the cool of his flesh clammy through the sleeve of his T-shirt.

  “Then…who could we talk to whose forte it is?” I asked.

  Lockwood shook his head. “I do not know,” he said. “If I did, I would have suggested it already.”

  “Not all witches and wizards can be bad, right?” I asked. “What about that one from Oz? She was a good witch.”

  “She’s fictional,” Iona's voice came from the far door. She was standing there, almost motionless, not even breathing—obviously.

  “How long have you been there?” I asked.

  “Long enough,” she said, arms folded across her chest. “I might know someone.”

  I stared at her. “You’re the most antisocial person I’ve ever met, Iona. How is it that you’re suddenly the one who knows everyone?”

  “I'm only antisocial with people I don't want to socialize with. To those I do, why, I'm practically effusive. Giddy, even.” She shrugged her shoulders, flicking her long, silvery hair over her shoulders. “Anyway, I know someone. But…” and here she blinked, sliding across the room toward me, “it will not be easy. So you need to decide how far you're willing to go for even the slightest sliver of a chance—”

  “As far as I need to,” I said. “You tell me we're going to the moon, I'm on my way to Cape Canaveral in minutes.” I got to my feet, looking her in her shining eyes. “I will go as far as I have to for him, Iona, so you tell me—how far do I have to go? The ends of the earth? Beyond? Back to Faerie? Say where, and I'll go.”

  “Cassandra...” Lockwood said, “you have more left to lose than you can see right now.”

  “No, I don't,” I said, looking him right in the eye. He looked away, unable to meet my glare.

  “It's not quite to the moon,” Iona said, unblinking. “At least not in terms of distance. But maybe farther.” She was almost whispering now. “In terms of what you'll give up.”

  “I'm about to lose everything anyway,” I said, brushing Mill's cold skin with my fingertips as I turned to face her again. “What's a sacrifice of a little more of me?”

  Chapter 23

  “Okay, so is this person that you know a witch?” I asked, pulling my sweatshirt over my head. Being a northern girl and having not experienced a Florida summer yet, it just felt hot all the time to me now. We were getting out of spring now, and the heat at night was what surprised me the most. T-shirt and shorts for me, thanks. I’d probably never need a sweatshirt ever again.

  It was dark outside, just after seven thirty. The last few streaks of pink were hanging on the horizon like fingers, as if they wanted to pull the sun back out. I waited on the front steps, watching the light recede in the heavy, moist air.

  Please, no, sun…don’t leave us. The darkness is where the scary things lurk.

  “No, not a witch,” Iona said. “But she knows magic.”

  Laura was doing the opposite of me, pulling her pale pink Victoria’s Secret Pink sweatshirt over her head. “Is it a vampire?” she asked.

  “Vampires don’t use magic,” Iona said, scrolling through her cell phone, not even looking at her.

  Xandra made it out the door last of all, wearing a black beret and denim overalls. Apparently we'd not only attracted a follower, but a fashionable one. “What?” she asked. “The nineties are back, and I’m so loving it.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  Lockwood was already at the car. Laura and Xandra had both followed us out, and nothing I said seemed likely to change their minds. In spite of my epic nap, I didn't have much energy for argument anyway.

  Mom and Dad were sleeping in Xandra’s guest room. Her parents had taken pity on us, Lockwood had told me, insisting that we stay until our house was repaired. They seemed happy to have all of the commotion and seemed to think that Lockwood worked at Mom’s law office, and that Iona was one of our friends from school. No one had apparently said anything to the contrary.

  They assumed that Mill was just some teenage boy who was really sleepy all the time, and that the sickly streaks on his skin were just strange tattoos. Again, no one had corrected them. I wasn't entirely sure Lockwood hadn't done something to bewitch them, but I was afraid to ask.

  “Do you girls want some tea for the road?” Xandra’s mom appeared in the doorway. She was wearing her dark hair in a tight bun, and had a pale, yellow apron tied around her waist.

  “That’d be great, Mom. Do we have any more of the matcha from Whole Foods?” Xandra walked back up to the front steps. Whether that was to distract her mom or not, I wasn’t sure.

  “Are you sure you want to come?” I asked Laura again.

  “Definitely,” she said. “I’ve been in this house all day. I need some fresh air.”

  “But it’s dangerous,” I said. Maybe if I knew how dangerous, I could spell it out for her and scare her off. Unfortunately, Iona had once again clammed up without telling me a damned thing, so I was stuck waiting to find out where this mysterious trip was going to lead us.

  “It’s dangerous here, too,” she said, adjusting the shoestring ties of her sweatshirt. “Why does that matter?”

  “Iona,” I said, looking at her, “tell them they shouldn’t come.”

  Iona pursed her lips and shrugged. “Yeah, I don’t care. They can come if they want.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “They…what?”

  “Whatever. It doesn’t matter to me,” she said.

  That was…odd. Iona was usually the one who was staunchly against anyone going anywhere with her. Why the sudden change of heart? I briefly pondered whether she was having them come along because it was going to be dangerous and she wanted them to die so she could be rid of them.

  She wouldn't do that, would she?

  Xandra reappeared with several mismatched plastic tumblers with straws. “Homemade matcha Frappuccino’s,” she said, passing them to us one by one. “Sorry, Iona. Didn’t think you’d need caffeine. Or milk. Or ice. Or anything.” She looked at Laura. “And I figured you'd like this most of all, Ugg boots.”

  Laura hesitated before taking the drink. “Did you just call me Ugg boots?”

  Xandra shrugged. “If the boot fits.”

  Laura opened her mouth to protest, but I really wasn’t in the mood for petty squabbling. “Thanks, Xandra. That was really nice of your mom.”

  “Okay, so are we ready?” Iona asked, shoving her hands into the pocket of her black leather jacket. “Did everyone pee? Because I'm not stopping and getting your blood in my upholstery is not going to bother me at all.”

  Laura just stared at her. “I thought you said pee...then you went to blood.”

  “You pee on my upholstery, I bleed you,” Iona said. “Covering the smell of pee with something yummy.”

  Laura wisely shut her mouth at that point, and white-knuckled the tea tumbler.

  “I think you guys should stay here…” I said once more.

  “Why?” Xandra asked, brushing passed me, straw already clenched between her teeth. “It’s not like we're going to visit those dangerous Amish, those angry, angry puppers.” She paused halfway down the steps. “Wait, does this trip involve the Amish again? Because I feel like my life could be complete if I get to pet an Amish werewolf.”

  “No,” Iona said, walking past us when we got out onto the porch. “And you're not wrong about that completing your life. By which I mean it would end, probably in the grip of angry Amish werewolf teeth.”

  “So, how far we going?” Xandra asked, ignoring Iona's crack at her. “Gainesville? Orlando? Jacksonville?” />
  “About six miles, actually,” Iona said, tossing her hair over her shoulder as she walked around to the front of the car.

  “Cool. Local is always better, right?” Xandra grinned at me. “Who knew all of these mystical creatures lived in my backyard? It’s crazy, right? Like discovering your Kombucha brewer is the best, ever.”

  Xandra was enjoying this a little too much.

  Lockwood was standing beside Iona’s car. “Shotgun,” he said, in his soft, formal, Lockwood way.

  “Whoa,” I said, “even in Faerie, the sacred rite of calling 'shotgun' is recognized.”

  Laura looked at him, then at the rest of us. Five was going to be a crowd for Iona's little VW. “Should we take mine, too?” she asked.

  “No,” Iona said, opening the driver door and lowering herself inside. How did she make that look so graceful? If I wasn’t worried about catching my foot in the door by accident, I worried that I'd hit my head on the way. “I'm not waiting up for some Valley Girl cheerleader to follow me.” She cast an irritated look through the open door. “I can just imagine you sitting there, driving two miles an hour over the speed limit bopping your head to Ace of Base—”

  “Ace of what?” Laura asked.

  “—or whatever you kids listen to these days,” Iona said. “I will leave you in the dust, princess of the brats. You and your little Prius with the mango-chutney-pineapple air freshener.”

  “Okay, I hear your angry rant and surrender on driving myself,” Laura said. “But I am so not sitting in the middle. I get car sick.”

  “Annnnnd now I don’t want to sit right next to her,” Xandra said, making obnoxious sounds with her straw.

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll sit in the middle.”

  We all climbed in, and somehow, it felt roomy enough.

  Lockwood took his place in the front seat beside Iona and turned around and gave me a wink. Now that I knew about his magic, I realized that I could see it almost everywhere. I made a mental note to thank him later. Extra space in the back seat was always nice.