by Su Williams
Their laughter grated the warm night air, and fanned the flames of jealousy. But what was I to do? This was her life, her choice. Did I have the right to intervene simply because I disagreed with her actions? Resisting every urge to go to her, shake some sense into her, I slouched down against the old blue spruce and covered my ears. But my heart still heard their quiet playful laughter. Anger boiled inside me to the point of overflowing. I had to leave. Had to get away. Had to clear my head of the imaginations that roiled around within. I couldn’t stand it any longer.
Just as the first sensations of phasing percolated in my body, I heard her voice.
“No!”
He growled. She gasped.
“No!” she repeated.
“Aw, come on baby. You didn’t bring me all the way out here for a slumber party.”
“You insisted on driving me home. I didn’t ‘bring you’ anywhere.” The sound of a scuffle issued from the cottage. “I said…” and another frightened gasp coiled the rage inside me tight. I phased into the kitchen, hoping those few moments cleared my head enough not to kill him. Eddy was already latched to the guy’s pant leg. Em struggled in his grasp. The man kicked the pup, who yelped and cowered. A raised hand was an unfamiliarity to him. That was enough to propel Emari to action. She hadn’t really cared what happened to herself. But the pup? He was a different story altogether. As her head cleared and some of her training kicked in, I froze in place. That’s my girl! Three quick hand-to-hand combat maneuvers later, and the slob laid on his back on the floor, rolling and groaning in pain.
“Now, get the hell out of my house!” she yelled. The guy rolled to his knees, and moaned as he hauled himself from the floor. I couldn’t help but smirk as his face lit in surprise at seeing me. He shambled by me, holding his family jewels.
“Crazy bitch,” he grumbled under his breath. But she heard it, and launched some tchotchke at his head. He yelped and scrambled out the door.
“And you can leave too,” she rounded on me, and bobbled on her feet. As the adrenalin waned, inebriation returned.
I sighed in frustration. “Are you all right?”
“Screw you,” she said as she hoisted Eddy in her arms and collapsed on the couch. “Now, get out.” Frustration rumbled in my throat, but I nodded my compliance. As I began to phase, her final barb hit its mark. “And I’m not your girl…not anymore.”
Was it any wonder, with the barrage of circumstances the girl had been subjected to over the last year—that she was feeling a fair amount of rage? What eighteen year old girl has dealt with her parent’s deaths, a vicious attack, faced her own death and eternally changed, and been lied to by all those she’d trusted with her life? Anger is a natural response to grief—I couldn’t fault her for her rage—especially at me.
Chapter 3 I Can’t Drive 55
Emari
The salesman at the Ford dealership was astounded when I flipped out my debit card to pay for a 2005 Thunderbird convertible. A little old school, but fast. Dollar signs and skepticism rolled across his eyes like a slot machine. I wanted that cherry-red sports car and the freedom of its speed. I didn’t need any mind contortions to buy a car, but I considered haunting his dreams for the pervie way he kept looking down my shirt. When he called me ‘Sweetie’ and suggested maybe the T-bird was too much car for me, I extracted his address and swore to give the worst night’s sleep of his life.
After a bit of finagling and a buttload of paperwork, he dropped the keys in my hand and bid me safe driving. Yeah. Not what I had in mind. Fast was the only thing on my mind. I hit the freeway at sixty-five in rush hour traffic, and wove my way through tired commuters on their way home after a long day at work. Once I hit Liberty Lake, in the far reaches of Spokane County, the traffic thinned and I let the horses run free. Any cop who might pull me over would be easy enough to sway. Of course, then there was his dash cam and radio, and probably a radar gun, that I’d have no control of. But the posse seemed to have other law breakers to deal with at the moment, and I flew to the state line without any blue and reds flashing in my rearview mirror.
The guy at the sporting goods store fairly glowed with appreciation at my knowledge of the weapons in his display case. I thought he might drop to one knee and propose if there hadn’t already been a gold band around his finger. Little did he know, I was conjuring the info from his own mind and the prints left on the weapons themselves.
I chose a rather wicked-looking piece that resembled a bat, with dual eight inch blades protruding like wings on either side, and spikes in the center like bat ears. And a set of sleek stainless throwing knives caught my eye.
“Got a place I can practice with these a bit?” I asked, feigning sweet and innocent.
“Uh. Sure. Right this way,” stammered the salesman.
He lead me to a side room with targets meant for archery practice, and suspended straw-filled burlap bags. My nose crinkled in memory of Sabre’s demise and the dirty burlap thrust over his head before he was hanged by William and Thomas, back in the day.
Printing the technique off the daggers, I lined up my shot and threw. The blade tip struck just shy of center target.
“Whoa!” gasped the salesman. And I saw him wave over a couple of his co-workers as I took my next aim. The next blade struck closer to home as I got the feel of the heft and force I needed. By the third, I was dead on, and four and five slid effortlessly along either side of it. While the salesman went to retrieve my knives, I culled self-defense moves from the practice bags hanging in the center of the room. I pulled out the bat knife and nodded toward the salesman.
“May I?”
He gestured with a nod to the bag. “By all means.”
“I may kill it with this,” I told him.
He shrugged and stepped back with his friends.
I laced my fingers through the holes in the knife and took a combat stance facing the bag. My thrusts and kicks were tentative at first as I accustomed myself the feel of the bag and the blade. With a one-two punch—to Nick’s face—a thrust kick—to Nick’s gut—and a lightning fast slash of the blade—to Nick’s throat—the burlap sliced opened and spilled its guts on the floor. Dark malevolence oozed in my chest and the grin on my face twisted to a sneer. My shoulders slumped despite the rousing applause from the sportsmen that gathered to watch my display.
Oh my god! Was I seriously just imagining killing Nick?
Yes! the darkness inside me hissed, and my sneer morphed back to a grin.
*
Nick
I swear I nearly fainted when Em rolled up in that cherry red T-bird. Once again, I hadn’t even realized she’d left. The CX9 was still parked in the carport, and fear continued to deter me from probing her mind, afraid of the fury it would induce. If I could just get her to understand. I didn’t lie. Not exactly. I omitted things. But a lie of omission was still a lie.
She glided out of the car and thunked a metal box down on the hood. She flipped the catch and lifted the lid that obstructed all but her face from my view. I didn’t like the malevolence that altered her eyes from emerald to fiery green as she gazed down into the box like the Holy Grail. I heard the soft clash of metal to metal as her eyes drifted over the lid to glare at me like some demon-possessed child. Her lip curled into a sneer and she phased out of sight. I prepared myself, sure she would materialize not far away.
Her form solidified before me and she shoved me against the trunk of the spruce. Before I could respond, one forearm pressed me back, while she held a duel-bladed weapon to my throat. The tiniest flick of her wrist would sever the artery on either side of my throat. And just to prove her power over me, she pressed the central points of the blade until they popped through the tender skin and blood trickled down my neck.
“When the hell are you gonna leave me alone?” she growled into my face.
“When you forgive me?” I suggested.
She barked an ugly laugh—so not like herself. “So never, then.”
“Em. Please
.”
“Gawd! You say that a lot. You know—I could just slit your throat and watch you bleed out.”
Any hope within me drained out of my feet. “Do it then,” I murmured.
One side of the blade seared through my skin, and blood blossomed and trickled down my chest. But her hand shuddered to a halt. Then her whole body quaked with fury. She flung herself away from me and crouched, ferocious and predatory, on the ground.
And then, she screamed. She screamed the torment of a wounded soul and rent what was left of my own. She threw the bat-shaped knife to the ground in disgust. At herself? For not killing me when she had the chance?
“Em…” I reached out a hand to her, but she snarled and scuttled away. “Please…”
Her hand whipped out from behind her and I barely caught the gleam on the knives edges before she flung them at my heart. I managed to phase before they struck and their razor sharp tips thudded into the trunk of the spruce. She balled herself up and clutched her head in her arms.
“Gawd!” she said again. “I can’t even kill you right.”
Fury erupted inside me. It was high time she grew up and faced things the way they were. I scooped her up by the arms and rattled her like a doll. Her eyes even fluttered open and closed like one of those lifelike dolls that close their eyes when you lay them down.
“Don’t you think it’s about time you grew up? You fought for your emancipation as an adult, but the truth is, you’re just a spoiled little rich girl who badly needs a spanking.”
Her eyes went from lost and hopeless to treacherously deadly in a second flat. With the ferocity of a cornered mama grizzly, she tore at my hands to her free herself. But I held fast.
“Let me go!” she screeched.
Eddyson bayed at the front window of the cottage. I wondered if he’d bite me for roughing his mistress.
“No. You need to listen.”
“You’ve got nothing to say I want to hear. Now let me go!”
“No. You need to know the truth.”
She snorted with derision. “Ha. Now you’re suddenly all into the truth?”
Part of me wanted to argue the point with her, but I pressed ahead, hoping to gain some ground. “Your father was my friend…”
“No duh!”
Grow up, Emari! But I kept the thought to myself. “He was my friend and I made a promise to him to be your aegis, to watch over you, if anything should happen to him. He was afraid the Rephaim would find you. What they would do if you were Caphar. I owed him at least that much.”
“Whatever,” she said and squirmed in my grasp. I shook her again.
“No. You need to listen to what I’m saying to you.”
“No!” she said.
And then she did something I thought was impossible. I’d never seen any Caphar, Weaver or Wraith, that had that kind of power. She phased out of my grasp. I clutched at empty air in stunned silence. My mouth gawped open like a dying fish. Then, the rev of the T-bird’s engine tore me from the dumbfounded daze.
The wheels of the car sprayed mud and rocks in a wave of shrapnel that pelted the trees. She raced up the driveway, the backend fishtailing in the mud. There was no flash of brake lights as she plunged onto 206, and an SUV swerved to miss her. The tires squealed onto Highway 2 and the engine screamed as she propelled it through traffic.
This is crazy. This has to stop.
I phased from the compound and blazed after her in ethereal form.
Emari please. Slow down.
Screw you.
Someone’s going to get hurt.
Good. Maybe it’ll be me. Or better yet, you.
The car continued to weave in and out of traffic, and soon left all of them behind. I followed, wracking my brain for some way to make this madness stop. I’d never phased into a moving vehicle before, but I had to try.
Her screech nearly split my eardrums and the car jerked into the oncoming lane, but she quickly corrected.
“What the hell! Just leave me alone.” Her voice shook with rage, but I could see a crack in her resolve. Maybe she’d sufficiently scared herself.
“Emari, I can’t. No more now than I could six months or even a year ago. I made your father a promise and now I’m helpless to fulfill it, because you are hellbent on destroying yourself.”
“No. Just you.”
“Fine. Just me.” I watched the speedometer race over 100. “Emari! Slow down!” An unpleasant and uncomely laugh erupted from her mouth and she sneered at me. “Em! If you don’t slow down, I swear I’ll…” but what could I do at 115 miles per hour?
“Or you’ll what?” she scoffed. “Why don’t you go make your promises to someone who might actually believe you.” And the speedometer swept up to 125.
A logging truck roared past and its wake slammed the little car onto the shoulder. The tail shimmied as Emari corrected.
“Why didn’t you just let it hit the guard rail? It would’ve crushed my side of the car. You could be done with me.”
She glared and snarled at me.
“Emari. I love you…”
“Ha!” she laughed. “You got a funny way of showing it.”
“I love you so much it hurts. What you’re doing—it hurts me too. It hurts me that I’ve caused you this much pain. I never wanted to cause you pain. Not ever.” My voice was pinched and quiet, barely audible over the whine of the engine. “Please stop and let me tell you the truth.”
Her eyes softened and she glanced at me and back at the road. The night was streaming past us in a blur darkness and scattered lights. The road was vacant, but for us. Her hands crushed the steering wheel, her knuckles rigid and white.
“Please, honey. I’ll tell you everything. Anything you want to know.”
“Why?”
Why? Why didn’t I tell her the truth before? Or why was I willing to tell it to her now? I didn’t have an answer. Not a sufficient one anyway. Fear didn’t seem satisfactory anymore.
“How could you do this to me?” she pleaded.
“I never meant…I’m so sorry, Em. Please…”
I reached to touch her hand, to encourage the softening of her heart. But she jerked away. The tires skidded sideways in a patch of loose gravel. The T-bird careened back and forth, and propelled off the side of the highway. It bucked and shuddered, and then took flight.
“Em! Phase. Now.”
Fear twisted her face, her eyes wide in terror and realization. Her hands froze to the steering wheel.
“Now. Phase now!” And I shimmered out of the car.
But Emari didn’t phase with me. For whatever reason, self-destruction or frozen in fear, she remained in the car as it rolled and crashed upside down in a reedy marsh. Once the screech of abused metal subsided and the hiss of the vehicles fluids died, the night was deathly silent.
“Emari!” I searched the night for her ethereal form, but I knew she was still inside the wreck of a car. “Oh god! Oh god! Emi.”
I sloshed through the ankle deep water of a lily-laden pond to the overturned car. Please be okay. The driver’s side door ripped open in my grasp and I wondered if adrenalin intensified Caphar strength as it did to humans. Her bloodied arm splashed out of the opening and floated in the water. I knelt to find her still strapped in her seat and prayed that someone would find us and call for help. But I knew they wouldn’t. No one had seen the crash. No one would investigate until they saw the skid marks in daylight.
Blood streamed from her face and matted her copper hair to her scalp. The flash of a memory—her mother’s face in her nightmares—what she’d imagined her mother looked like after their crash. I checked her pulse and sighed with relief to find it. I didn’t dare release her seatbelt for fear she’d fall and break her neck. I laid in the muck to look into her face.
“Emi, honey. Please wake up.” Silence. Even her shallow breaths were disturbingly quiet. I caressed her cold bloody face. “Please, baby. Wake up.” If she could just phase out the car, just get into incorporeal form, I c
ould guide her home. The phasing would help mend her. But I couldn’t make her phase, as much as I wanted to use my own abilities to pull her out of her corporeal form, she had to do it on her own. And I couldn’t leave her here alone to go find help. I kissed her face and tasted the coppery tinge of her blood on my lips. The memory of kissing Felicia’s cold still lips, as my wife of so long ago died in my arms, flooded my mind. Please God. Not again. Please don’t let me lose her. As if hearing my silent prayer, Emari’s eyes drifted open and she gazed distantly at me.
“Hey.” Her voice was quiet, as wrecked as the car.
“Hey back,” I choked out through relief and tears. “Emi, I need you to phase. We need to get you back home.”
She groaned like a reluctant teen. “I wanna sleep.” She said, oblivious to her plight. Delirious from the conk on the head and blood loss.
“No baby. You need to wake up. You need to phase so I can get you out of here,” I pleaded.
“I’m not Baby,” she protested, her voice raspy and soft as though every ounce of her energy was exhausted.
I pressed my forehead to hers. “Please honey. You remember, right? Think of the thing that’s light and soft.”
“And pink? Cotton candy?”
“Yes honey.” I chuckled. “Yes, light and soft like cotton candy.”
“Then can I go to sleep?” She sounded every bit like the little girl I’d accused her of behaving like.
“Yes, honey. If you phase out of the car, then you can sleep as soon we get you home.” I knew a single phase wasn’t going to mend all the damage inside her, with this extent of injury, it would take some time, several times phasing for her to recover. But it would be a start. It might just keep her from dying. “Come on now, honey. Let’s go.”