by Jasmine Walt
“I loved you once,” he says to me, grabbing my arm, and I feel my face twisting with my mind as I try to figure out what he means. “You were too good for me. Too pure. Too weak.”
His nails dig into my bicep. “I led you to the stakes,” he whispers loud in my ear, his voice like a snake. “I set the fire myself.” He shakes me now, and the look in his eyes—it’s pure insanity. He thinks I am Cordovae? Not with her spirit, but herself in the flesh? His eyes are nearly black. “How dare you come back? You were meant to die in Logroño! I saw you die! Tell me how you did it.” He shakes me again. “Tell me how you came back!”
He’s becoming increasingly frantic, and I realize then he doesn’t want me to die. Not again, not yet—not until he knows how Cordovae is still alive.
I turn my nose up at him. “Does it matter? You’ll die here today. You will die with this pathetic army.”
He laughs, staring over my shoulder. “And so will your friends.”
I twist to look behind me, my heart sinking at the sight: A Mort, possessing a large, dead human man, stalks up behind William, holding a large rock over his head.
Even as it’s starting to come down, I force my way through the pain to swing once more at the Ankou before me. This time, my sword slices into his neck, decapitating him, dropping the rest of his body first to his knees and then to the torrents below.
“She never loved you,” I say to his corpse.
I spin back to William. He’s staring at me, a stunned look in his eyes as the remaining possessed dead bodies in the field drop into the crystal blue water. The body of the one holding the boulder is instantly crushed. Those bodies were nothing without their spiritual puppet master.
“Now, Cord!” William yells, and I release the moon.
It moves slower than I hope. If it doesn’t lurk away from the sun fast enough, it could mean the death of any or all of us. I close my eyes, drawing more energy from water that floods the clearing and embracing the spirit of the moon, both working together, empowering me as I use my willpower to control the elements.
Finally, the moon creeps away from the sun, and light bursts out, slanting onto our battleground and incinerating the remaining Cruor...sending them up in flames until all that remains is their charred ashes falling like snowflakes into the water.
In that one moment, the majority of the Maltorim’s Cruor delegated to preventing us from our goal are eliminated, and with the Maltorim’s lone Ankou dead and unable to control the Morts, they are more disorganized. But we still have a lot of work to do before a new army is forged.
The Marked Ones—the Strigoi that work alongside the Maltorim—still remain. A hand thuds on my shoulder, and I turn around. Adrian and his comrade, Charles, stand behind me.
“Now we make amends,” Adrian says, and with that, he and Charles charge into the clearing, engaging the remaining Maltorim warriors.
Their alliance stuns me, but does not move me as much as the two other presences that glide into the battleground. On the other side of the field, closest to my altar, stand Vanessa—the postpartum woman I helped escape Salem—and Grace, the woman who saved me and yet who I abandoned.
Relief that Grace was, after all, someone I could trust, floods through me. I run across the soggy clearing to where most of the Strigoi have gathered and fight alongside my comrades—all of them—for once feeling like we have a chance of survival. A chance to put an end to the darkness.
That is until I remember that William and Tess are fighting under a blanket of sunlight, one that surely suffocates their Ankou bloodline. Their weariness reflects in my own, as I’m weaker than I realized from forcing one final travel to put an end to the miserable Ankou who was controlling the army of the dead.
My adrenaline subsides to make way for reality. The pain in my back and blood from the injury drop me to the ground. I crawl to a tree, my vision darkening.
“Hang on,” a voice calls out, but I don’t know who it is—only that it’s female.
Through the shadows and blur, Verity’s face fills the frame of my vision. “You’re hurt!” she cries. “What happened?”
“I don’t—I don’t—” Know.
What had happened? I want to tell her how glad I am to see her. To thank God she’s all right. But I can’t speak.
“I have you,” she says. “Don’t worry. Hang on. Stay will me, you’ll be all right.”
Verity’s voice soothes me like a mother’s lullaby soothes a child, and my own mother fills my vision. The woman she had been once, before the darkness arrived. Memories of being little and her grasping my wrists and spinning me over the tall grass in our back yard, until we were both dizzy and fell back to stare at a pale blue sky full of white cotton fluff, the only sound aside from our laughter the snapping of crisp linen hung to dry in the cool, early autumn breeze.
“You’re going to be fine,” Verity’s voice cuts in again, and my vision clears. “Here, take this,” she says, pressing some Daphne berries to my mouth. “Chew. Come on.”
Are those tears in her eyes?
I swallow the berries and grasp her hand. “How did you know?”
“Vanessa found me in the woods, shortly after you disappeared. I convinced her I was a friend and trying to help you, but by then, you were already gone. She said you might need my help one day and told me what to do. Then I saw all the townsfolk marching to the woods...and...I just knew you would be here. Oh, Abigail. You should have told me. Thank heavens you’re all right.”
Somehow, Vanessa had known to trust Verity more than I had. I wouldn’t make that mistake again.
“Verity, I—”
“Not now, please. Your friends still need you.”
She’s right. This battle isn’t over yet. Though the sun has killed all the Cruor on the field, we still have the Marked Ones and the remaining Morts to finish off. But we’re outnumbered, and William and Tess won’t make it long enough to finish this battle without my help.
I shake my head, willing her to leave my side. “Go. Please, Verity, don’t worry about me. If you’re going to . . .” I can’t say it. Can’t admit she’s risking her life because of me. But she is, and I need her to. “Help them.”
She bites her lip, nods her head sadly, and then pops more Daphne berries into my mouth before running into the fray.
34
April 1692
I grasp at the underbrush behind me, hopelessly hoping I’ll find more nightshade or Daphne berries or anything to help me recover, instead of leaving me incapacitated on the side of the battlefield.
But there’s nothing but branches with their first few leaves of spring waiting to break free.
Water laps against my back like waves on a beach at low tide. I shiver involuntarily against the chill, my body aching from the cold, but soon the water is soothing. My head sways as though I sit atop an iceberg on a choppy sea, and the pain of the cold is like needles pressing into my skin. But each time the tide pulls back, the poison seeps from my wound.
I feel the water healing me. Making me stronger than before. But it’s not helping quickly enough. Something black and pooling is in the water, swirling like smoke in the sea. I see my chime bob in the current, and my heart sinks.
Never let the chimes get wet.
The blackness snakes out toward the Morts, and soon I see their spirits growing and twisting. Their eyes glow red, and their increased strength is apparent by the way they begin to overtake our group. Their spirit-forms had at least resembled humanity; these morphed beings are less deceptive and more terrifying. They are monstrous, disfigured, and vibrating with a thudding evil.
One of the Morts grabs William by the neck and lifts him up onto his toes, and then further until his legs dangle.
They can touch us now—without the need for a human host.
The Mort uses his other hand to grab William’s chime necklace, and holds it up to inspect it as it reflects the sun’s rays. A grin twists his face, and he drops the chime, letting it plunk into th
e water to create its own smoky pool.
“No!” Tess yells, but she can’t get to him with all the other Morts and Marked Ones still between them. They need me.
I grab the root of the tree behind me and use my healing abilities in a new way. Not only for regrowth of what has died, but to force as much new growth as possible. The tree sprouts new branches. Old ones twist and extend, poking out further into the clearing. My energy is draining rapidly, but I won’t let go. I can’t.
Soon one of the branches is pressing so hard into another tree that the tree is leaning into the clearing. Its roots are lifting. The Mort who has William opens its new monstrous red eyes wide as the smaller tree begins to fall. He releases William to duck out of the way, and William twists his body in the other direction. Everyone in the tree’s path parts like the red sea. Bodies dive away to save themselves.
This won’t be enough, but it bought us a little time. I slump back against the tree, nearly unable to keep my eyes open. The water tingles my wounds and laps against me, rolling over me, soothing me.
Then, suddenly, I’m weightless.
The water pushes me up, until I am levitating above the clearing, the waves an uplifting swirl beneath me. Peace floods through me. Perhaps I was always meant to die in the water. Maybe that’s where my life went wrong—when my father saved me from drowning, only to later make me wish I were dead.
If I die today, will the water carry me back to Anna, or will my soul be lost forever?
Below, Adrian, Charles, and Vanessa have taken over fighting the Strigoi. Grace, though she can no longer move the Mort spirits, assists William and Tess by tossing any possessed humans out of the way, keeping them at bay as my friends do the work I should be doing alongside them.
The spirits crouch together like a pack of wolves, except their dark forms are so varied in shape and size that they resemble trees incised with human faces. All of them—even the children among them—are bereft of beauty and innocence.
In the horde of spirits, one captures my attention. His eyes hide in shadows, but his thick aquiline nose casts an elongated shadow that cuts through his lips and graduates to a point on his cleft chin.
Rage boils within me, my ears burning hot, my body trembling so fiercely I am surely hurting the air around me.
That particular Mort was the first.
He stole my family in Georgia.
My mind fixates on the moment before the accident. The moment before Pa lost control of the car. A man standing in the road. But it wasn’t a man. No, it was him: this Mort in front of me now. Pa jerked the car sideways to avoid what he thought was a man. The truck squealed as it angled on two wheels, and then it tumbled.
Anger cuts my peripheral vision, and I focus on him as though through a tunnel. The spirit of the Forever Girl swells within me and lends me the strength and energy I need. My muscles jerk with a surge of unexpected power. The Mort’s translucent body shimmers around a face as resolved as a dead-skin mask.
I reach out, squeeze my hand, and then pull my fist to my stomach, willing the Mort forward. Even in his spirit form, he stumbles. As though he’s opened his eyelids, the shadows peel back from his forehead, showing tiny green vortexes that seem to absorb the air around him. His middle teeth, as long and craggy as stalagmites, gleam with feigned moonlight.
I lift my arm, and his spirit rises, joining me in my levitation. When he closes in on me, I thrust my hand forward, my elongated nails slashing into his forehead, but before I can send him to an eternal non-existence, he thrusts his spirit hand forward and plunges it into my chest. Filaments of burning pain coil around my organs and constrict.
My lungs seize, and pain pulses through my chest as though I’ve swallowed a gulp of boiling water.
I gasp for breath. My vision blurs.
His blurry face grins, and he pulls me closer, yanking my body as if I’m his puppet.
“You,” he whispers with a voice like a rattlesnake.
His face stops inches from mine. I dig my nails deeper, and his smile turns into an angry grimace.
But he doesn’t stop. He presses so close against me that I can feel his spirit entering my body.
“No,” I try to say, but the word leaves me like a dying breath.
This is what I have spent a lifetime trying to avoid. This is the spirit that forces itself on you. The spirit that violates you. Now he’s taking everything that is left of me. Making my body his own.
I can’t surrender. I can’t be like Pa. My head feels thick and fuzzy. He’s pushing my body forward, down. My face plunges into the water, and I hold my breath. I can’t breathe. I open my eyes, but all I see is debris floating by, obscuring dozens of pairs of feet. I flail my arms, push against the ground, try to pull my head back up, but he makes me resist every effort. My arms are not my own. My spirit is breaking.
Finally he pulls me out of the water and throws my body back. The water surrounding us parts, as though running away. My emotions spill, and my tears soak my face. My mind flashes back to my Pa, and my body shuts down completely.
Get off me. Leave me alone.
His voice rattles: “You’re mine.”
Not yet. There’s still a part of me left. I can’t let him take me.
My body struggles to fight back, but I can’t overcome him. He’s stronger than most other Morts I’ve encountered. I went about this the wrong way. I should have hidden myself with my wings on my approach. Too late now.
He is inside of me, and his form wreaths around my spine. I fall back, twisting in agony.
Tess straddles me, pinning my shoulders down. “Let her go!” she screams. She pounds my chest. Tears gleam in her eyes and fury twists her face. “Get out! GET OUT!”
Through the haze of my vision, I see black veins branching on my shoulders where Tess touches me. The skin starts to gray, and my heart throttles into a panic. My mouth twists open and my neck bends to one side, and vertebrae pop between my shoulder blades. My eyes roll back. Then laughter that is not my own bubbles from my throat.
“Kill me,” he says, mocking her. “Kill...me.”
Killing the host is the only way an Ankou without Ferrum nature can end a Mort spirit that has possessed human flesh. But Tess is driven by her sense of justice. She wouldn’t kill me to kill him.
Would she?
Tess’ long dark braid falls in front of her shoulder, and loose strands of hair stick to her face. Water drips from her nose. “You won’t take her from me,” she says through her teeth. She slams her hand into my chest again. “You won’t take her!”
In my blurred vision, she reaches into her pack at her side and removes the Malleus Maleficarum. She grabs my hand—his hand?—and presses it again the book. “Cord, please. We need you. Anna needs you.”
Images flash into my mind. My gift of psychometry sends visions flying by as it searches for a memory I can use imprinted on the book. Anything. All I see is destruction. Burnings. Beheadings. Hangings. Slaughter. Lies. Deceit. A world in which women are the sexual playmates of Satan. I want to break away from this—the idea that witchcraft sprang from carnal lust. That in women, lust is insatiable.
The image freezes. Clears on a girl in a white flowing gown, standing still in a sea of commotion, her dress fluttering gently in the breeze. She’s reaching toward me. She’s saying something . . .
Regna terrae, cantata Omne, psallite Cernunnos.
The spirit tenses within me, bends my body painfully sideways. It coils my organs, and it squeezes. I hear myself scream—my own voice. The Mort is deep within me, harboring in my body, recoiling. Growling.
Regna terrae, cantata Omne, psallite Aradia.
It grips at my gut and twists my body so hard that Tess is thrown from me, but she doesn’t let the book leave my hand. I pull my face out of the mud, and there is a moment of solace before the spirit twists around my belly again. I scream again, this time in the spirit’s voice—a cougar’s voice.
In my vision, a dark storm surrounds the girl
in white.
Caeli Omne, terrae, Humiliter majestati gloriae tuae tu a nobis, Ut ab omni infernalium spirituum potestate.
The Mort shrieks. He lifts one of my hands and plunges my fingernails into my own face. I try to press out my Ferrum nature, in hopes of biting myself, but he won’t let me. It’s too late.
Laqueo, and deception nequitia. Omnis fallaciae libera nos, dominates. Exorcizamus you omnis spiritus malus.
My body jerks backwards until I’m up straight, and then slams backward again, hitting a rock and opening my scalp. My vision clouds, but the girl is still in my mind. Fading and returning, fading and returning, her voice somewhere in the distance . . .
Omnis malus potestas, omnis incursion, infernalis adversarri, omnis legio. Omnis and congretatio secta diabolica!
The roar in my head is so loud it feels as though my brain is bleeding. My body convulses. Pure evil pours from my mouth, a raspy voice that is not my own. “No one wants you, Tess! Go away. Go away, little girl! You’re dead, you’re dead!”
I feel Tess’ trembling, but I cannot comfort her.
I hate myself. I want to die. I want my life to end before this Mort makes me do anything unforgivable. Is this what it had been like for my father? Was he as much as victim as me?
The girl from the book’s memories continues, a fire catching behind her, blazing in the background. Ab insidiis mali, lobera nos, dominates, ut coven tuam secura tibi libertate servire facias, te rogamus, audi nos!
My whole body is convulsing. Something wet drops from the corner of my lips, and I taste it on my tongue. Blood. My blood.
Terribilus Omni Sanctuario cernunnos virtutem plebe. Aradai ipse fortitudinem plebe suae! Benedictus Omni, Gloria Patrie! Benedictus Dea, Matri Gloria!
And it’s calm. Eerily calm.
I look up to see the flashing red in Tess’ eyes, and I know exactly where’s he’s gone. And exactly how to end him once and for all.
I lunge toward her and sink my razor teeth into her shoulder.
Tess shrieks in the Mort’s voice.