The Claiming

by Glenn Williams

  “Of course it does,” I said, keeping my tone light. “I'm the one you needed to impress, so good job with that.” More softly I added, “And Rory, when we get through this, we should talk about Olivia. You don’t need to do this alone anymore. I can help you.”

  Rory took my hand. His skin was surprisingly warm against mine. There was a flash of guilt in his eyes, but he smiled at me. It didn’t reach his eyes.

  “I’d like that.”

  “So tell me, Warlock,” I said, standing and pulling him up with me. “Are you ready to move heaven and earth to help me save him?”

  Rory grinned at me and it was real this time. A silent understanding passed between us. He loved my brother and he was willing to do whatever it took to save him.

  I could get behind that.

  “This is charming,” Emily said, her tone suddenly cold. “But we have questions for you, warlock. I have questions for you.”

  “Who is she?” Rory asked, looking to Emily in surprise, as though noticing her for the first time. Which, in all of the insanity of what had just transpired, perhaps he had. “And, I'm sorry — but what?”

  I opened my mouth to speak, to explain that this wasn't necessary, that I trusted him, but Emily cut me off before I could say anything.

  “I'm Emily Rode, Queen of the Witches,” She said, staring him down, her eyes hard and dark. “And you will answer for your crimes.”

  “You're from the original coven,” Rory breathed, his eyes widening. He sputtered for a moment. “What crimes? How are you even here?”

  “I should ask you the same,” Emily said, her tone accusing. “How did you get here? What did you offer in return for passage?”

  Rory stiffened and a wall fell across his expression, but not before I saw another flash of guilt in his eyes.

  My heart plummeted and I felt immediately sick to my stomach. Because, in that instant, I immediately knew exactly what it meant: he had offered a life. He had offered a life in return for passage. He had offered my life.

  I was the sacrifice that had brought us here.

  “Rory?” I asked, my voice cracking.

  I pulled my hand away from his.

  The warmth fell away from me, as though it had never been there at all.

  “I—” Rory broke off. He was still staring at Emily. He didn't look at me. Wouldn't look at me. “I—I don't think that want to tell you that.”

  “Rory?” I asked again, stunned. “Answer her question. What did you sacrifice to get here? Who did you sacrifice?”

  Please don't let this be true. Oh God.

  Rory looked at me and his eyes widened, “Kendra, no! It wasn't like that.”

  But his tone told me everything. It was even worse than the guilty look in his eyes. He was suddenly afraid. An innocent man would have nothing to hide.

  I mentally replayed everything that had happened that night. He had appeared to me, causing the accident. He had manipulated me, forcing me to understand what was happening. He had convinced me to come here, to hell, swearing to protect me. And then he had vanished. It was only because Emily had rescued me that I was even still alive. Had he planned for me to die all along?

  “Oh,” I said quietly. “Oh my God.”

  “Kendra,” He said. “No. No, you have to listen, I would never—”

  “You brought me here,” I said, resisting the urge to double over. My heart was breaking into pieces, sharp and jagged. I could hardly force the words out. I had trusted him, only seconds ago. That was gone. “You said that I was the only one who could find my brother. You promised to protect me, and I believed you...”

  “No, Kendra! I meant it! I would never let anything happen to you.”

  “You vanished, Rory. You didn't protect me. Emily did. Where were you when I was almost ripped apart by a pack of zombies? Was I ever going to make it out of the underworld?”

  “Kendra,” He said. “Please, let me explain.”

  “I—” I broke off. “No. Rory, she's right. How did we get here? What did you trade to get us here? Explain that.”

  “There's no need,” Emily said. She threw her hand up and pointed at the blackness in the distance. She muttered a spell under her breath.

  A scene manifested out of the darkness and fog.

  Rory on his knees. His face was streaked with tears, illuminated by the soft glow of several candles ringing a darkened room. Something red and dripping was smeared on his face. Blood.

  But none of that was compared to what my eyes landed on.

  Rory was holding a bowl. Incense smoke rose around it, curling and white. Inside of the bowl was a photograph that I recognized. It was the photo taken of me at my college graduation.

  Rory set down the bowl and pick up a knife. Without pausing, he sliced the palm of his hand open with it. Blood dripped onto my picture.

  Rory's eyes were fixed and he was chanting something under his breath.

  At first, I couldn't make out the words.

  And then, suddenly I could.

  “Queen of Elfame, Mistress of the threshold, I adjure thee, take this life for his. Accept my sacrifice and grant passage.”

  Over and over again. He was rocking back and forth as he said it, the bowl cupped in his hands. Moments passed. He repeated his chant, over and over. It rung between my ears. Each word was nail in the coffin.

  His eyes changed, darkening. Until there was no whites left. No color at all. His eyes became completely black. Like the eyes of a demon.

  The vision faded, leaving me stunned.

  He had traded my life to get us here. Everything that Emily had said was true. And everything that he had said was a lie.

  Rory looked from Emily to me, his expression just as horrified as I felt. “Kendra,” He said desperately, “You can't trust her. She's lying to you. Please, I would never hurt you. It's not what it looks like.”

  “Really,” I said thickly. My voice sounded distant in my own ears. Like a stranger's voice. “According to Emily, getting here is not an easy spell. Crossing into the underworld. It requires a sacrifice. Tell me that's not what I just saw you doing.”

  Rory swallowed hard. He looked like he was struggling to say something. More lies, probably.

  But his silence said everything I needed to know. He couldn't deny it.

  “Oh,” I said again. I couldn't say anything else. My heart was too busy expanding in my throat like so many pieces of broken glass, choking me. “Oh.”

  I realized right then, how much I had fallen in love with Rory, how much I had trusted him, how much I had wanted him to be good. For my sake, and for my brother's. I felt another wave of nausea, “How could I have been so stupid?” I whispered.

  Emily sighed.

  “He was right about one thing,” She said. “You are the only one who can find your brother. In fact, I think it's time you did.” She pointed off into the distance. “Are you ready to finish this, Kendra?”

  I looked in the direction that she was pointing. On the horizon, a sliver of pale light was encroaching on the endless darkness, piercing the eternal night in a perfectly flat horizontal line. Dawn was approaching.

  Our time was up.

  Emily held out her hand.

  “Don't do this,” Rory said, sounding horrified. He took a step towards us. “Please, please don't do this. Don't leave again. Kendra—”

  I took Emily's hand. I couldn't look at him.

  Emily's hand was cool in mine. We locked eyes for an instant. Her eyes were strangely cold, almost calculating.

  Before I had time to react, to tell her to wait, she made a strange tearing motion with her free hand.

  And then she moved, pulling me with her. Darkness rushed towards us. The air left my lungs and I felt nothing but crushing blackness.

  I felt no fear. I welcomed the blackness, the crushing oblivion. My heart was already crushed, why shouldn't the rest of me be?

  Then, abruptly, the scene
around us changed. Rory was gone. We were standing on the same road, fog rising up on either side of us. Except that we were no longer staring down the barrel of an endless darkness.

  It was much worse than that.

  In the distance ahead of us, I recognized a house in the distance that filled me with dread. It was a place I had promised myself I would never, ever go again, as long as I lived. It was the place where the worst thing I had ever experienced had occurred.

  It was a house of horrors.

  And I knew suddenly, unshakably, that it was where Gwydion was. And, if I had been honest with myself, I had always known it was exactly where he'd be. After all, it was where he had been all along, ever since that night. Ever since he'd pulled the trigger, shaking and afraid in the doorway of my bedroom, covered in a fine mist of blood, his eyes wide and blank like mirrors. Because deep down, I knew — I had always known — that Gwydion had never really left that house.

  “Well then,” Emily said quietly. “We're here.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  It was the only spot of color in the otherwise gray underworld.

  Still, at the sight of it in the distance, my heart began pounding and I felt thin beads of sweat break out across my brow. My throat tightened and my legs felt suddenly weak. The hair on the back of my neck rose and my teeth went on edge. Something plummeted in my stomach.

  Every instinct I possessed told me not to go anywhere near that house.

  I can't do this, I thought. Please, please don't make me do this.

  Everything that had happened to bring me here crashed down around me all at once.

  I had learned that witches, real witches, existed. I had learned that my brother was trapped in the underworld and I had, impossibly, made the decision to come here to save him. I had faced down literal demons, a horde of zombies, I had relived my parent's funeral, and I had seen Rory's darkest memory, brought to life...

  Rory.

  A wave of emotion flooded through me.

  Rory had betrayed me. I couldn't even wrap my mind around it. The realization was still too sharp and raw, like the very thought of it had razor blade edges, eager to cut me to ribbons if I tried to understand it. He had convinced me to come here, then he had left me. He had offered my life in exchange for my brother's life.

  I had rescued him from becoming trapped in the memory of losing his sister. I had comforted him. I had even held him. I was a fool.

  I should have let him burn. If I had known, I would have.

  No, I told myself fiercely, swallowing my hurt. No, you couldn't have.

  No matter what Rory had done, I couldn't have let him burn. Even now, feeling hurt and confused, I knew I couldn't have left him there. I couldn't have spent his life the way he had spent mine.

  I did leave him, though. I felt a sudden pang of guilt at the thought. What if he couldn't make it out of here? Was what I had done, leaving with Emily, just as bad?

  Idiot, I thought, trying to convince myself. He offered your life as payment to get here. You saw it. He would have been happy to leave you behind.

  A quiet and still part of my mind seemed to answer: If he's still here when the sun rises, he'll be trapped here forever. He won't leave without Gwydion. You'd be just as guilty as him.

  I turned to Emily, to tell her that we had to go back for him. If she had brought us here, I had no doubt that we could go back for him, just as easily.

  The spot where she had been standing, just beside me, was empty. She was gone. I had been so fixated upon the house and then on my own guilt over leaving Rory behind that I hadn't even noticed her leaving.

  I was alone again.

  “Emily?” I called. “Emily!”

  My voice seemed to echo back at me from the darkness. It went on for a long time. Nothing stirred in the darkness.

  Maybe she had gone back for Rory, I thought desperately. Maybe she had felt guilty about leaving him behind and she and Rory would be back any second. If I just waited...

  But I knew the truth as soon as I thought it.

  Emily was gone and she wasn't coming back.

  A new and visceral horror crashed down around me. I was alone again. My legs suddenly felt like they were made of sand. I felt rooted to the spot, unable to move. My heart was still hammering in my chest. All of my determination drained away from me in an instant. It was replaced by a dread that cut me to my quick. I could feel it in my marrow, turning me to stone.

  I stood like that for a long moment, unable to move, unable to think.

  Then, abruptly, I realized I wasn't quite as alone as I thought.

  Niram was standing on the side of the road, perhaps twenty feet away. He was watching me with cold black eyes. The expression on his face was blank and inhuman.

  I was alone with him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I was alone with a demon.

  Niram was quite literally standing between me and my destination. With cold, black eyes, he studied me. His face was entirely blank, expressionless.

  In the distance, the horizon was still subtly lightening. I was running out of time.

  “Hello, Kendra,” He said, his lips curving into a smile that was just as cold and black as his eyes. “We're alone at last, I see.”

  I patted my pockets desperately, searching for the cross. My pockets were empty except for my cell phone. I had forgotten to take it out of my pockets before we crossed into the underworld, and it apparently had come with me. A part of my mind noted that it was weird that I hadn't noticed it before, but the larger part of my mind was replaying everything that had happened since the graveyard. When was the last time I'd had the cross?

  Then I remembered. The fire. It had been in my hand during the fire. After rescuing Rory from the memory, I had been so focused on comforting him that...

  Oh God, I realized. I must have dropped the cross.

  “And you here without a weapon,” Niram clucked his tongue. “You're almost making this too easy.”

  I took a step backward, away from him. But I knew that it was useless. There was really nowhere to run. And besides, I had to get to the house in the distance. Which meant that I needed to go through Niram. There was no other option.

  “Cat got your tongue?” Niram said, his voice growing deeper and more demonic-sounding with every syllable, until it was almost a roar. “And you seemed so brave earlier. When you possessed a weapon and were surrounded by your allies. Where is your courage now, girl?”

  “There are rules to this,” I said, hoping that it was true. I struggled to sound strong, but instead my voice came out sounding weak and kittenish. A pathetic squeak next to his roar. I added, “To how this is supposed to work. You can't just kill me outright.”

  “Let me tell you a secret,” Niram said, his voice still distorted and inhuman. He grinned at me and I noticed for the first time that his teeth were sharp. How had I not noticed that before? “I don't like playing by the rules. And I don't need to kill you. Not when I have so very many friends.”

  Just then, I noticed a ripple in the fog to my right. It was perhaps fifty feet away and slightly ahead of me, but it was a strange enough that I caught sight of it immediately. From my left, further in the distance, a chittering echoed.

  Other chittering sounds, all around us, responded.

  Niram, still grinning at me, disappeared into thin air. At the same moment, the pool of light I was standing in vanished.

  Stupidly, I looked up. The streetlight next to the road had burnt out. I hadn't put much thought into the purpose the lights served.

  Rory's words came back to me, as clearly as though he had spoken them in my ear: They're afraid of the light; they won't come near it. Just stay on the path and you'll be fine.

  And then my question: What happens if I do go into the fog?

  You don't want to know.

  Around me, I heard excited chittering. Movement.

  Whatever the creatures in the fog w
ere, they were coming for me. They were getting closer.

  I sprinted to the pool of light on the other side of the road, twenty feet ahead of me. I turned to look behind me. I could see shapes moving, but I couldn't make them out.

  Chittering again. It sounded angry.

  The light above me dimmed, then went out.

  I moved to the next light, on the right side of the road. Another twenty feet.

  It went out almost immediately, with a small popping sound. Exactly the way that a light bulb sounds when it blows out.

  Behind me, I could hear the sound of dozens of — feet? Paws? Claws? — moving across the pavement. Something in the fog ahead of me chittered excitedly.

  There were answering chitters from just behind me.

  I sprinted again, towards the safety of another pool of light, just ahead of me.

  Another small pop! It went out.

  I moved to the next light, and the next. They all went out, so quickly that I couldn't stop to catch my breath.

  At least I was moving closer to the house in the distance. But I knew that I wouldn't be able to keep this up for very much longer. There was a stitch in my side and my chest was burning. I had to stop and catch my breath.

  I forced myself to keep running, but my body wasn't used to being pushed like this. I was losing speed.

  I wanted to stop so badly that it was all I could think about.

  I regretted never using my gym membership.

  More chitters, louder and more insistent. This time, hundreds of them answered.

  They're everywhere, I realized.

  It was like they were screaming at me to stop. And I wanted to. But I couldn't stop. The moment I did, the light would go out and these things would close in on me, whatever they were.

  If Emily were here, or even Rory...

  I pushed the thought away. They weren't here. I was here, alone.

  Think! Think!

  I continued on, gritting my teeth against the pain.

  My body finally forced me to a stop in the pool of light parallel to the house, which was still several hundred yards off the path. I would have to go through the fog.