My eyes were so wide, it was a surprise they didn’t fall from my skull and roll along the floor.
Bridgette, if she’d seen my distress, ignored it as she walked into the house, twisting her head from side-to-side. Either she was checking for an attacker or she liked the décor. Eventually, she turned and nodded at me. “So where’s the contract?”
“Upstairs,” I said through a tight gulp of a breath. I pushed past her, intending to head up the stairs to the attic. That would be when I noted the mud tracks along the carpet. Large – they had to belong to a big man. A man as big as McCain.
“What is it?” Bridgette insisted, her voice now so tight with worry, it was obvious she was taking my hesitation seriously.
I didn’t answer. I reached out a hand, clamped my sweaty fingers on the banister, and slowly walked up the stairs. With every step I took, I swore my heart beat harder until it felt as if it wouldn’t just ram out of my rib cage but would pulverize itself.
He was in the house. Or something was in the house. The terror clawing up and down my back couldn’t be lying. And yet, at the same time, I wasn’t using my precognitive abilities. It wasn’t the damn fireflies dancing back and forth across my vision telling me what would happen next. No. Just plain old common intuition the likes of which I’d once relied on before I’d entered this ridiculous world.
By the time I made it to the third-floor landing, I was an absolute mess of nerves. And yet there was something, something that was pulling me on. Something I couldn’t fight. It felt like inevitability, like finally coming to the end of some journey.
Bridgette was a single step behind me. And though I couldn’t see her, I could feel how tense her body was from here. I swore the air around her was charged with pure fright.
I didn’t say anything to her as I walked down the corridor. I stopped abruptly several meters from the stairs that led up to the attic. They were down. Max was usually very protective over those stairs. He always ensured I retracted them when I wasn’t up in the attic, so I would never ever have left the stairs down. Which meant….
I heard something from up in the attic: a heavy thumping sound.
Bridgette snaked a hand forward. She grabbed my elbow and yanked me back. “What the hell is up there?” she hissed in my ear, her breath slicing across my neck and cheek.
I felt that undeniable sense of inevitability. I swear it was tolling in my mind like a bell.
We heard the unmistakable sound of footfall as someone continued to walk around in the attic.
“Who’s up there?” Bridgette insisted again. “We can’t fight them – you’re already injured,” she reminded me with a hiss.
Which was a good reminder, as I’d clean forgotten. My mind was too focused on the possibility McCain had somehow fallen into my time.
I’d kind of blanked out the fact there was a hole in my thigh and countless injuries scattered over my arms and legs. The fact, nonetheless, struck me right in the center of the head as I felt a pang of nausea cross through me. And yet, I fought it with all my might as I rapidly came to a decision.
We were close to one of the spare bedrooms. Silently, being a heck of a lot more stealthy than I thought I was capable of, I tiptoed over to it, gently opened the door, and pushed Bridgette inside.
She shot me the kind of unmistakable look that asked me what the hell I was doing.
I simply parted my lips and mouthed, “Trust me.” Then I closed the door.
I turned. I felt my heartbeat reverberate in my chest, practically try to strangle me with its suffocating rhythm. But I wouldn’t let it stop me. Not yet, not ever. Because it was time for McCain to lift his curse.
I strode forward. I reached the base of the stairs. I pushed a hand out, clamped it on the wall, and started walking up. As soon as my footfall struck the resonant wooden steps, the sounds in the attic stopped.
I reached the top of the stairs, my head cresting into the attic.
The attic wasn’t a particularly large room, and yet now it felt as small as a matchbox. It wasn’t that someone had somehow altered the space using magic or just plain mechanics to crush the room into a suffocating point. Nope. It was that in a single moment, my eyes locked on him and my worst nightmares were confirmed.
Max McCain. There was no doubting it. He may not be in the same tough hides and hessian shirt I usually saw him wear. Instead, he was in a white polo shirt and brown trousers, with a dinner jacket strung over his shoulder. He also wore what looked like an extremely expensive gold watch. Oh, and his sword. It was still strung at his side, and my gaze darted toward it. I saw it crackle with an unmistakable charge of power.
His back was to me, his body hunched over the desk as he pored over my family contract. Slowly, every single muscle rippling up and down his spine and through his pronounced, large shoulders, he turned to face me. At first, a look of anger swept across his features. But in a second, that changed as an expression of pure greed took hold.
I’d never seen anything like it. The way his eyes lit up, the way his lips slackened and then pulled so tight it was as if somebody had rolled them out with a rolling pin.
He shifted around, turning and shoving back into the desk, the simple lamp on top shuddering under the impact. He leaned into the desk and crossed his arms in an unmistakable move I’d only ever associated with Max.
And then? Then the bastard smiled at me. It was truly one of the most sickening things I’d ever seen. It brought attention to his jaw, to his mouth – framed them as every tiny, tight movement of his lips seemed to climb his face like a wild animal. “You came to me,” he said triumphantly.
I clenched my teeth together, squared off my jaw, tilted my head back, and faced him. “What the hell have you done to Max, asshole?”
He chuckled. “What is this asshole?”
“It’s an insult, you bastard.”
“Ah yes, an insult. Don’t worry, I’m familiar with your modern tongue,” he said. “I’m familiar with this entire world,” he proclaimed as he brought up his watch, latched a hand onto it, and tapped a finger on the expensive glass. “Because I’ve watched,” he said, that same smile spreading across his lips. “Learned. You see,” he tilted his head even further to the side, “I’ve always been present in Max’s mind. No matter what he did,” McCain brought up a hand and slowly tapped it on his jaw, indicating whatever Max had done he’d done it with his mouth, “I was there every step of the way. Every second. Every kiss.”
I paled, feeling so sick I could have lurched backward and thrown up down the stairs. I swallowed. “I don’t care,” I spat. “But you’re gonna release Max. Whatever spell you’ve cast, you’re going to get rid of it.”
This time it took McCain several seconds until another one of those smiles raced across his mouth like wildfire through dry wood.
He took a step toward me.
I shook back and almost fell down the stairs. I had to jolt a hand to the side to catch myself in time.
McCain took several steps toward me as he clicked his tongue. “Now, now – be careful. I can’t have you dying in some kind of accident. Not when I waited so long for you.”
A kick of true fear spiraled through my gut. More than anything, it was at the unmistakable desirous look in his eyes.
“I don’t care what you want. I won’t help you,” I said, voice so tight I could hardly cram my words out. “I won’t help,” I repeated, words growing more desperate. “Why do you even want me?”
Max didn’t say anything. He simply continued to observe me like you would an item in the store you were considering purchasing. “Why do I want you? I would have thought that was obvious, my seer. Just as I would have thought you could use your powers to spy into the future and realize it won’t be all that bad, not with me by your side. For we’ll finally be able to do what I have sought to do my entire life – bring justice to this world. Bring peace. Bring the great destiny we’ve always desired.” As he spoke, his voice wound up like it was some kind of motor or propeller g
etting ready to spring into flight. And the look in his eye – god, it became all the more crazy until I swore his pupils would actually burst into flame.
I shook my head, the move tight, my neck like a twisted spring. “There is no goddamn way I’m going to help you,” I said, voice stuttering.
“You have no option,” he said in a light, quiet whisper.
“I’ll find a way,” I replied through clenched teeth. “I know what you’re doing – know what you’re planning. And there’s no way I’m ever going to use my powers and let you in.”
This elicited a loud, echoing chuckle. The kind of chuckle that made you seriously question the sanity of the person giving it. But I didn’t need any more evidence to question McCain’s sanity. It wasn’t just the look in his eyes or everything I’d seen him do in the past. It was his mere presence. It rippled off him – his dark desire to control, to bring so-called justice to the world by tying it up so it could never make a mistake again.
He’d taken several steps away from the desk, and he continued to assess me with that awful tilted-head move that made him look like a snake questioning whether it should strike its prey now or later. He didn’t, however, take another step toward me. That would come later. For now, he had me right where he wanted me.
I kept my teeth gritted so hard I could have chewed through the enamel and slashed into my gums. “I’ll never submit to my power. And even if I did, there are too many other magical practitioners in Bane City – they’ll stop you. You have no chance, McCain. Go back to the past. Give up. Give me Max back,” I said. I’d been able to keep my voice even up until that point, but then it broke as another burst of emotion rattled through me. It was emotion I shouldn’t have shown, because once more it lit up McCain’s face and made that fire burn all the brighter in his eyes.
“As I said before,” he gestured wide with his hands. “I am Max. He is nothing more than a broken shard of my soul. One that was mistakenly saved,” he said through gritted teeth that looked as if they could never be moved again, “by your forebear, Mary.” On the word Mary, McCain’s eyes became dark. That was no emphasis. I didn’t mean they narrowed to the point where it was hard to pick up the pupils. No, I mean actual darkness seemed to well through them and spread through the irises until they were indistinguishable from lumps of coal.
It sent an awful, cold sensation billowing through my gut, and I had to cram a hand onto my stomach as if to hold myself together.
He noticed, and it sent another smile cracking over his lips. “But you see, there was nothing for that fool Mary to save.” McCain slammed a hand on his chest.
The move echoed so loudly, I couldn’t help but yelp with surprise.
“Be not afraid. I won’t hurt you, my seer. Just the opposite – I’ll give you the purpose you’ve always searched for. For I watched you, Chi McLane, even before your grandmother betrayed me. I knew of you back then. I guessed what you are capable of. But I had to wait, wait until that old woman’s protection ran out. But now,” again, he spread his arms wide, “I don’t have to wait any longer. I’m here. The future is finally ours.”
“Ours?” I said through a croak that barely made it out of my throat. “There’s no way on earth I would ever help you. And there’s no way on earth you’re getting out of this room,” I said, voice dropping.
He tilted his head to the other side, eyes narrowing. “What exactly do you plan to do?” he questioned as he took another pointed step toward me, his heavy body shaking through the floor and up into my stomach. “You are trapped. There is nothing you can do without your powers,” he added. His eyes blazed with that unmistakable fire that threatened not just to burn me but to burn through the rest of the world while it was there. “You cannot fight me on your own. You require your powers.”
“You think I need to use my powers to fight you, you bastard? All I need is common sense. Oh, and a well-placed lie here and there.” As I said the word lie, I looked into his eyes. Though I still felt the fear rumbling in the pit of my stomach, I fought past it as I shot him the hardest look I could muster. “Or have you forgotten, dear McCain, that you can’t tell the difference between a lie and the truth?” It was a move deliberately designed to bait him.
For a second, it didn’t work. But then I watched his lips stiffen, watched that smile falter and crack as if it were glass that had been thrown off a cliff. The anger washed through him with such exquisite obviousness he was like a Shakespearean actor playing it up for the crowd.
“How dare you,” he began in a voice that shook with anger.
“I dare,” I cut in before he could finish, “because I can. I’m a natural-born liar, McCain. I’ll tell you what you want to hear, lie whenever I can. And you? You, dear McCain? You won’t be able to tell the difference. Because you’ve never been able to tell the difference. You’ll be too distracted by that beautiful future you think we’ll have together, and I’ll let you believe that lie right up until the last moment. Right up until I shove you back into the past and save Max.”
He started to fume, and I don’t mean that as a metaphor. Magic began to wash up and down him, cascading across his body as if he’d just swallowed several live wires and they were crackling through his sternum. I’d never seen a stronger display of power. Though my Max had often been able to cause crackling magical blue flame to escape over his body, this was different. Even I could sense how much power was trapped in the move. The whole room started to crackle with it as if we were about to be struck by lightning. Then again, who was I kidding? I was going to be struck by lightning – McCain was far more powerful than any mere natural phenomenon.
“Come here,” he roared.
I turned and sprang down the stairs. I threw myself onto the landing below and somehow managed to keep my balance. I didn’t tumble head over heels and crack my skull on the floor below. I hit the carpet, shoved a hand into the wall for support, and threw myself forward with everything I had.
Fortunately, I had a little experience running from an enraged Max, and I didn’t even bother to turn my head over my shoulder. I could hear he was right behind me. Hell, I could feel his magic. It still rushed off him in waves. It crackled and sparked through the air, feeling like a mini electric storm on the third floor of my house.
“What are you going to do when you catch me, McCain?” I spat, using up my precious breath as I taunted him. “I’ll make sure you never leave this house,” I said louder and with a pointed tone I hoped would carry beyond my frantic footfall and back to Bridgette. I just hoped she wouldn’t be stupid enough to reveal herself too early. She was my wildcard. It was a gamble, but hopefully if I distracted Max sufficiently, Bridgette would be free to fend him off.
I just hoped she had the magical power and sense to get through this.
“I’m going to get the contract book in the attic,” I said louder and more pointedly. “I’m going to shut you down, ensure you never get out of here,” I said again in that same irritating, singsong tone. “Because you can’t see the future, asshole, and you can’t tell the truth from a lie.”
He let out another roar which I swear sounded like a lion getting ready to pounce.
I put on a burst of speed that should have been impossible considering my injuries, and I threw myself down the stairs. All I had to do was get down to the first floor, buy Bridgette some time to get to the book and take it. But that would be when I remembered something – a fact that struck me like a blow to the jaw. Only I could carry the contract. When I’d first met Max and he’d chased me up to the attic, the fact I’d hefted the contract had been the one thing to stop his relentless assault.
Just as my cheeks paled at that realization, a plan formed in my mind. I, Chi McLane, may have been a lot of things, but my life as a fake fortune-teller enabled me to think on my feet. And think on my feet I did.
“What’s the matter, McCain? Why can’t you catch me? Come on, asshole,” I continued to taunt him, but as I did, I was careful to shove a hand into my pock
et and start texting Bridgette. You would have thought for an ordinary person that would be impossible, and it would be, but not for somebody who’d spent the last few years of her life fulfilling fortunes whenever she could. I had a preternatural ability to text on the move. I barely had to check the screen for typos, and I knew the touchscreen of my phone like the back of my hand.
Right now I used that power. It may not have been magical, but that didn’t matter.
I texted Bridgette two words: distract him. I pulled my phone out to check before I sent the message.
I hoped like hell that was enough of a message and she got the idea.
By the time I threw myself onto the first-floor landing, I heard McCain’s growl right behind me. I also heard a thump and a rattle from the kitchen. It peaked my interest enough that I threw myself toward it.
Don’t ask me how, but I was keeping a healthy distance between myself and McCain. Possibly it was because I’d enraged him to such a level it sounded like he was going to explode.
I managed to reach the kitchen before he did, and as I shot into the room, I saw Bridgette. It took me a second to realize it was her body-double. Her expression was completely blank and certainly didn’t have the kind of concern you’d hope a friend would share when a crazy sorcerer king from the past was chasing you through your house.
Before Max could make it through the door, Bridgette’s body-double pushed forward in a graceful and yet blindingly quick move. She furled into me and grabbed the massive jacket off my shoulders – the same huge jacket Max had given me back in the library. She pulled it off, and in the same elegant but fast move she put the jacket on. She shoved me into the pantry and then ran full pelt through the French doors just as I fell into the pantry and the door half closed.
She reached the French doors, and McCain entered the kitchen. He didn’t even glance my way. He roared at Bridgette as she opened the doors and threw herself out into the night.
Bridgette was taller than me, but that didn’t matter, as she must’ve put on a quick enough burst of speed that Max didn’t notice.
A Lying Witch Book Four Page 3