by Ward, H. M.
Eric’s face was covered in sweat despite the snow. He breathed, flaring his nostrils, his shoulders tensed and his arms ready to fight. “You,” he spat. “You did this. Where have you been?” he yelled. “I held him off and you disappeared.”
My eyes flicked to the destroyed landscape and back to Eric’s face, “I wasn’t gone that long, and… ”
He rushed at me, and I was too shocked to move. Eric grabbed my wrists, and pulled them up to my neck, pinning them together. His body shook as he stared at me, increasing the pressure on my wrists. “And, nothing. You left. And now you come back? Now you want to save us?” He laughed, and threw me to the side. My body landed hard on the frozen ground forcing the air out of my lungs. I gasped, looking up as Eric began to walk away into the burning sun that was setting in front of him.
I shot up, and he turned with speed that I didn’t expect. “I had no choice. How much time has passed?”
There wasn’t a speck of gold in his eyes, “Five weeks. It’s been five weeks since you left me here. Five weeks of hiding, of running, of fighting. There’s nothing left. The demons destroyed everything looking for you.” His gaze raked my body, and he laughed. “And I thought… ”
“You thought what?” my voice scratched from inhaling so much smoke. The wind shifted and we were lost inside a cloud of burning rubble. I coughed, unable to see him. “I was gone for seconds, seconds! When I came back, you were gone! There was nothing left.” I paused. “I thought you found the memory you needed. I thought that you… ”
His fingers wrapped around my arm, digging into my skin. Eric pressed his face to mine, “You thought what?” he hissed through the smoke. “You thought I found what I needed? You thought I found where the Satan’s Stone is?” He shook me hard, yanking me out of the cloud of smoke as he did it. “There was nothing. Nothing. None of that memory remained in your mind. I searched for it, but it was gone.” The cloud of smoke was behind us, as Eric pressed his face to mine, spitting words in rapid succession.
Something inside me stirred, dropping into my stomach like lead. “So the book… The page… ” I asked, looking into his face. “It was for nothing? You don’t know where the stone is?”
His grip dug in tighter before he released me. “Where were you? Where did you go while your world bled to death? Every Valefar was forced to slay anything that breathed, while they searched for you. Collin was in the first wave to show up. Since then there has been nothing but attacks. Your screwed up blood spared me from being forced to battle with the Valefar. I have their mark on my face, but I killed them just the same. I waited for you. Hoping you’d come back. But you didn’t. Where were you? ” His voice was rough. Eric’s gaze searched over my shoulder before returning to my face.
I couldn’t tell him. The blood bargain forbade me to speak of it. It prevented the words from tumbling out of my mouth. So I did the next best thing and I called the demon glass. Eric turned his head looking at the place next to me as it shimmered and turned black. Within moments the Glass of Locoicia stood next to me. I pointed to it, “I was in there. My blood bargain required me to go. Time usually stops when I step inside, but this time, it didn’t.”
Eric’s eyes were wide. A flicker of gold swirled around his black pupils before extinguishing. He leaned towards it, and then pulled me away like it was poison. “Shit. Is that what I think it is? How do you find this shit? Fuck Ivy!” He ripped his hands through his hair and looked down at me. “Your blood bargain was with Locoicia? She did this?” I nodded, watching rage and fear collide in his eyes.
“She knew I couldn’t stop this, either that or she made certain that I couldn’t stop this.” Turning my head, I gazed at the landscape. There was no trace of suburbia. It looked like someone dropped acid on the ground and smashed the trees with boulders. The ground was cracked and covered in rubble and blood. Glittering black scales floated by on the breeze. Plumes of smoke rose into the air from a million places of differing size. This was the epicenter of the destruction. Maybe I couldn’t stop it. It was too late for that, but maybe I could do something else. If I was their Queen, they would have no choice. I turned to Eric. “I have to call him. I have to end this. Or there will be nothing left.” The bleak landscape said there was already nothing left, but I couldn’t accept it.
He shook his head, “I don’t know where the stone is. Without it, you’re too weak.”
Ignoring him, I grabbed the black blade out of his hand. Eric watched with his lips parted, as I pushed the blade against my palm. A thin red line trailed after the blade as it swept across my palm. When I finished, I thrust the blade back into his grip. Stepping toward the mirror, I raised my arm. Streamers of blood ran down my wrist and dripped on the earth at my feet. I pressed my fingers to the glass, feeling its sudden resistance beneath my palm. Swallowing hard, I wiped my bloody hand across the black glass.
“Ivy,” Eric said from behind me, “Don’t. Don’t do this. Assuming Illeca is alive and she told you this, you… You just can’t trust her.”
Silence filled the air. I stared at the mirror watching my blood change the nature of the glass. Our reflections appeared within its smoky depths. I knew Eric was right, but it was too late for that. It was go forward and kill Kreturus or die. “I made a blood bargain, Eric.” I glanced at him as I lifted my right pointer finger and smeared K onto the glass. “She can’t lie.”
He grabbed my shoulder and twisted me around, “What are you, new? Of course she can lie! She’ll break the bargain in a heartbeat if she thinks it’ll free her. And you’re too weak to do a damn thing about it. Shit! We should have found the stone when we had the chance!” He turned from me, and I stopped halfway through smearing the letter R. “I feel like I should know. I can feel it, but I can’t remember. Why do I know about it? Why did I know about Satan’s Stone at all?”
My eyes slid over his body. He was sincerely asking. My face went slack as the answer came to me. I suddenly knew why he knew about the stone. Why he had notes in his book. Why he was the authoritative expert on the subject. Eric saw it happen, he saw the curve of my mouth drop, and the recognition in my eyes as my hand moved away from the glass in shock. Eric yanked me away from the mirror.
He flung me to the ground, pouncing like a crazed cat, and pinned my shoulders to the frozen earth. “Tell me. You know. I saw it in your eyes. You know something.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Eric shook my shoulders, but I called shadows. Within seconds they snaked down my throat and protruded from me until they wrapped around his arms, and pulled him off of me. I rose, and walked back to the glass and added the letter E. My blood didn’t dry or freeze or drip down the black mirror. The swipe of blood was exactly as I’d left it.
Eric cursed me over my shoulder, screaming obscenities at my back. I shook my head, considering the explanation. “It can’t be. It makes no sense. You had a life, a wife—and Al found you.” I smeared the letter T. “I was mistaken.” I turned to look back at him. Eric was held to the ground with invisible bonds as shadows snaked around his wrists and feet, binding him to the earth. I turned back to the glass and smeared an U through the blood before Eric spoke.
“Don’t make me do it,” he said. I turned to look at him after I wrote R on the glass. “I’ll kill you the same way I killed those demons the last time I saw you. Their skin was filleted from their bodies. That’s why there were scales everywhere. And that was only the beginning… And don’t think I can’t do it. It has nothing to do with how powerful I am. Don’t think it won’t have any effect on you, cause it will. It’s your power, not mine. When I kissed you searching for the memories, I borrowed some of your power. Only the tiniest drop, small enough that you didn’t notice.” But I did notice. I’d felt the power drain, but didn’t realize what he did. It wasn’t the venom that weakened me after Eric’s kiss, it was Eric! His fists clenched into balls at his sides, as he writhed on the ground fighting against the shadows that bound him. Smoke billowed around us, blowing in th
e winter wind. Eric growled, “Don’t make me do it, Ivy. I will. If you write one more letter on the glass without releasing me, you’ll force my hand. I can’t sit here, tied up and let you do this. If she lied to you, you could free Locoicia, and then we’ll have to deal with her and Kreturus.”
Watching him squirm at my feet, I said nothing. I blinked once, making my decision. My arms folded across my chest. There was a moment. I could pause now, but once the last letter was strewn across the mirror, I could not stop. The shadows fled from Eric as soon as I released them. He sucked in a jagged breath before jumping to his feet. His gaze burned into my body as he walked toward me, but I didn’t blink or back away. “Explain it.” I was certain that her lie would be detectable. “How do you summon a demon?”
Eric looked at the glass, and then back at me, “He’ll effonate to you, using your power to do so, when you call his name, but… “
“And if the demon is bound? Then how do you call him?” I asked glaring at him.
“There is no way to call a bound demon. The magic used to hold him will prevent you from effonating him.” Eric pointed at the mirror, shaking his head. “You see. Something’s wrong. This shouldn’t be here. This blood and glass should have nothing to do with calling a demon.” He looked at the reflectionless glass. “What’s it supposed to do?”
I was wasting time. The world around me was dying. Curtly, I replied, “My blood, a brimstone blade, and his name is supposed to suck Kreturus through this glass. The moment he is through, I’ll kill him. Eric. It’s our only chance. It won’t exhaust my power. It’ll end this. Isn’t that what you want?”
More gold flickered through his eyes like a light bulb that was about to burn out. He drank in my face like he’d never see me again. Eric pressed his lips together and stepped away from the glass, sweeping his arm forward, allowing me to write the last two letters on the glass.
Staring at Eric from the corner of my eye, I stepped passed him. My blood clung to the glass with all but two letters to complete his name.
I lifted my hand to the glass with my index finger outstretched. Pressing my finger against the black glass, I carefully smeared the remaining letters. My eyes shifted from the mirror to Eric. My gaze ran down his tense shoulders to the black blade that was clenched in his grip. He was half crouched, and ready to fight whatever came through the glass.
My blood-strewn letters soaked into the glass. It was like watching letters cast in magic marker disperse in water. Our reflections appeared in the glass. It was changing. I could see Eric standing behind me, watching the enchanted mirror, and waiting… The black pane came to life. It rippled once, then twice. I reached for my hair, grabbing my comb. The tines extended, as I pressed them to my mark. Demon magic flowed through my veins as I called to it. Anticipation and determination cemented inside of me, as I felt Eric step closer.
The words of the dark magic Illeca had trained me to say lingered on the tip of my tongue. A dark form appeared in the glass, as if it were very far away. A figure stood frozen, getting pushed towards us at incredible speed. Good. It was working. I tasted the words in my mouth, rolling the death spell over my tongue. My heart raced inside of my head, as I watched the figure get closer and closer. What took a matter of seconds seemed to last a lifetime. Kreturus stood with his head slumped, appearing completely human. My jaw tightened at the sight. Locoicia said it would be easier to kill him in human form. A tangle of dark hair masked his downturned face as the glass forced him forward. Faster and faster he approached, and the words were ready, ready to say—ready to kill.
My mind was disconnected from my emotions, as it needed to be. Dread didn’t wash over me in cold sheets. I stood there facing the being that would kill me, and felt no fear. But in the back of my mind, something whispered—something I promptly suppressed.
The figure in the glass didn’t slow. He was hurdling faster, frozen, unmoving as he was summoned to die by my hand. I stared with hatred at the broad shoulders, and the dark hair that covered his face. His body hurled through the glass as if he were no heavier than a piece of lint. I didn’t have time to think, and by the time his body pressed to the glass, it was too late. The words were ready to roll off my tongue. They had to. There was no alternative. No choice. And it was more than my bargain with the Demon Princess that forced me to say the spells. I had to stop the destruction that was strewn around me. And the only way to stop the demons was to kill the one commanding them. There was no going backwards. There was no other way.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
I uttered the first word as the boy was thrown through the glass, and cast face-down on the ground at my feet. He shook his head and curved his shoulders to rise, but the spell grabbed hold of him. He tried to free himself as the spell threw him down. His voice was gravelly—unearthly—like a voice suspended in a throat-tearing scream. A second passed. No more, no less.
The next word fell from my lips and splashed to the ground. His head turned to the side. Dark hair covered his face, as the spell crushed the breath out of his lungs, pinning him to the ground. His body heaved, making the sounds of a drowning man gasping for his breath. One second passed. No emotion filled me. I didn’t care that he couldn’t breathe. I didn’t care that it was my words that were killing him. I felt nothing. No compulsion to stop, no empathy—nothing.
My mouth opened and the third word fell forth. His gravelly voice, a voice that was trying to speak to me, was suddenly muted. Though his mouth moved, not sound protruded. I caught a glimpse of Eric’s face in the mirror. His eyes burned with hatred, but his gaze seemed shocked.
Another second.
Another word.
Another spell.
There was no mercy. I uttered a fourth word. The boy’s back arched, but his body was still pinned to the ground. His mouth open in a silent scream. I could see every tooth inside his mouth. The veins in his neck were ready to pop, as his eyes were crushed together trying to endure the pain I inflicted.
One word left. Only one word remained.
As I watched, waiting for the second to pass, something whispered at the back of mind. This was not what I expected Kreturus to look like. He was vulnerable in this form. Why would he use it? Was he really just the victim of faulty timing? Was it true that luck was with me, and I caught him in a human body, instead of his own hideous form? I watched the boy as his pale pink lips remained parted in agony, frozen in a silent scream that never ended.
The pain price was about to slam into me. Payment would be made as the fifth word rolled off my tongue. The spell was death. After I said the word, the boy’s writhing would stop. His body would go limp at my feet in less than a second. Hideous things would happen to me for uttering the words I said. The pain price would be unbearable. I stared at the boy. Kreturus had already killed him. At best he was a Valefar. Death would free this boy, and let him die in peace, while the rest of us figured out how to endure the new Hell.
One word left. The second swept by, surreally slow. The boy’s face remained contorted in pain and covered by his dark hair. As I moved my jaw, and slid my lips around the final word, a plume of smoke blew into my face. I pressed my eyes closed and heard my voice ringing the beginning of the death incantation in my ears. The wind whipped the smoke away quickly. My gaze fell down to the boy screaming in agony at my feet. The sudden gust revealed his face. And I saw him.
Collin.
I felt nothing. Shock didn’t wash over me. Horror didn’t twist my stomach into a thousand tiny knots. My voice didn’t ring forth, ripping out of my throat with complete devastation. I felt nothing as I saw his beautiful face contorted in pain. His eyes were pressed closed, trapped in a silent scream. His face. His perfect face was in utter agony. Collin’s normally smooth and confident brow was wrinkled in torment. His lips, the lips he’d pressed to mine—the perfectly pale pink lips that I wanted to cover my body—they were pulled back in silent horror. His screams didn’t resonate. He writhed at my feet, bound on the frozen earth.
The word, the last incantation was pouring from my lips, unable to stop. The words were already falling from my mouth when I saw his face. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t withdraw the words. I stared at him with horror screaming through my mind like a rush of wind that I couldn’t feel. There was no choice. Tears did not stream down my face. Numbness flowed through me as I looked down at Collin, knowing that his death was imminent.
Silence followed the final word. A black shimmer surrounded his body and dissipated. If I blinked, I wouldn’t have noticed. Part of me wondered if that was the last bit of his soul leaving his body. Eric stood behind me, wide eyed, and staring. That was when the pain price began. It was designed to start after the last word was spoken. It was made so that I could say all five spells in succession without pause. Without hesitation. Without error. The price of all five spells began, one after the other.
I stood perfectly still, staring straight ahead. My jaw locked as the first wave of agony washed over me. Breath was choked from my body as every piece of muscle was shredded to bits within me. The muscles that were normally woven together, unwrapped strand by strand. Pain coursed through me. It was only in my mind. It wasn’t really happening. That was the way it worked last time, but this time I wasn’t so sure. My mind didn’t connect with the pain, although I felt my body screaming inside my head.