Allegiance

by K. A. Tucker

  I had my answer. For tonight, anyway. Tonight, I would make it all go away. I was going to get drunk.

  I poured another healthy dose of that burning sweet syrup down my throat, praying I’d quickly succumb to whatever magic powers it held.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Bishop stepped forward. “Can I at least walk next to you?”

  I nodded. He jutted his chin down a hall I had not been down yet. “There’s a kick-ass wine cellar that way, if you want to see it?” he grinned.

  More wine meant more liquid therapy. “Lead the way, oh wise one.” We began walking. I halted. I was forgetting something. I turned back to see Wraith gingerly poke his head out the door. One long leg tentatively stepped across the threshold, as if he half expected to melt. I guess I couldn’t blame him. His entire existence confined to one room was enough to drive anyone crazy. When his leg didn’t melt, I swore I caught a hint of a smile. If Death was capable of smiling.

  I rushed forward to catch up to Bishop. The others followed behind like silent shadows, including Wraith. When I walked, he walked. When I stopped, he stopped. Several feet away but never too far. Much like Max, Wraith was my bodyguard. A life-sucking, unshakable bodyguard who was bound to me until I died. I brought the bottle to my lips once again, taking a more liberal chug. It wasn’t nearly so sweet anymore, nor was the burn so fierce. In fact, I was growing fond of its taste. The warm sensation flowing through my limbs relaxed me.

  “So, Wraith,” Bishop began and when I turned back, I saw that mischievous look in his eye. He was the old Bishop again, from the days of running through the caves. I missed it so dearly … “Should we call you Wraith? Such an awkward name. How about just ‘Death’?”

  Amelie sniggered from her twenty-foot distance. Even Max snorted in my head.

  “I have been given the name Wraith,” was all he said, ending any potential fun at his expense.

  “Well, he’s a barrel of laughs,” Bishop muttered.

  Peeking over my shoulder at him, studying the way he marched in a perfectly straight line—back straight, arms stiff—I wondered what Nathan had been like when he was alive. Certainly nothing like Wraith. There was no way Sofie would be in love with a lifeless, humorless android. I guess I shouldn’t expect Death to have a personality, though. Another tip of the bottle … another drink … What would I do if the Fates did this to Caden? To stand next to the empty shell of him, to have his gaze pass over me without a second’s thought?

  My insides recoiled. I glanced back furtively to meet beautiful jade eyes. Four of them? I squinted. No, two eyes … What if those beautiful eyes were lost to me forever, as I thought them to be not long ago? I sighed and took another long pull on the port. My tongue felt thick. I rolled it inside my mouth and then smacked it against the roof to wake it up. Funny … my jaw didn’t hurt anymore.

  11. Tempting the Fates—Sofie

  A plump snowflake settled on the bridge of my nose. More flakes followed, tickling my eyelids, lips, fingers. Their crisp wetness was a welcome relief as I knelt before Nathan’s tombstone. Night after night, I lit a candle for his resting bones under this tree while I knew that abomination lurked inside.

  And now … that abomination was trailing Evangeline, ignorant to my existence, to the unconditional love that I held for its human inspiration. All it cared about was whether I was a threat to Evangeline or not. And if it decided that I was? Dispatch me … like a housefly.

  Bitterness leeched into my bones. As much as I wanted to blame the Fates for their twisted games, I had no one to blame but myself for this one. It was here, in this spot five years ago, that I cast that disastrous enchantment. Just after Viggo discovered Evangeline’s existence and ran her mother down with a car. So distraught with the turn of events, I wasn’t thinking straight. I couldn’t have been. If I had, I never would have done it …

  That night, the anniversary of Nathan’s death, the only night of the year that I dared visit the chateau, sweeping through the courtyard in a shroud of secrecy to light a candle and beg in vain for his forgiveness. That night, though, on my knees, my heart shattered into a million pieces for Evangeline’s suffering, fueled with hatred for Viggo, I pleaded with the Fates. I begged for the ultimate guardian. Someone who would exist for the soul purpose of keeping my dear girl safe, who could not be stopped for any reason, by any creature—mortal or otherwise, magical or not. To this day, I can’t help feel the urge to bash my head against a brick wall when I replay that criteria, that ask of the Fates.

  It didn’t take long for the Fates to answer me. After visiting Nathan’s tombstone—distraught and weary—I stumbled into Nathan’s music room. That was another yearly ritual of mine. When I stepped inside that room, I could still hear Nathan plucking the strings of his violin.

  No music played on this night, though. The second I stepped into the dark room, I spotted the lone figure sitting on the Victorian couch, a dark shadow under the moonlight’s stream. Unmoving, back rigid, hands layered on his knee. His cheekbones, his hair, his lips … it was Nathan. I dove forward, falling to my knees, grasping his hands, thanking the Fates for their generosity, their kindness. How stupid of me … So overwhelmed, I didn’t sense the wrongness about him, that cold, rotten air that tainted his surroundings.

  It wasn’t until his limp, unloving hands lay lifeless in my grasp, when I peered up into his irises to find milky blue soulless pits boring into me, that I realized this wasn’t a gift from the Fates. This was a new depth to my punishment. A few seconds after, the bomb went off inside my head, revealing all. The Fates liked doing that. One second I know nothing, the next my head is filled with all the details, as if a detailed manual had plunged into my mind. I saw what this thing could do, the danger he would become to the world if loose, passing judgment, taking on the role of a grim reaper. A new level of hatred blossomed inside me for the Fates that night.

  Oh, how the Fates must’ve laughed. As if offering a poisoned olive branch, they allowed me the chance to lock him up until I felt the need to release him. That was the night that the magical ward went up and his world became a forty-by-seventy-foot space. He had no idea what was outside the walls and he didn’t care. He was programmed to wait for his bond with Evangeline to be complete. Three years … three hundred years … it mattered not. If she died, he would cease to exist. He couldn’t die. He wasn’t alive.

  From that night forward, I struggled to erase all knowledge of my creation. And that was the last night I stepped foot inside the chateau. I would gladly not have returned. Ever. But desperate times called for it. I should’ve known this bizarre Tribal magic would eventually break the cloaking spell. I should’ve taken preventive measures. I should have … I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose, knowing there wasn’t much I could do.

  And now Wraith was out. Now, every day, every moment that I wanted to see Evangeline, speak to her, touch her … those demonic pits, impostors in Nathan’s beautiful face, would be there, watching, waiting to lay a lethal hand on me. I hadn’t felt the impact of Wraith’s touch before. That first night, he did not use it on me. I guess he didn’t view me as a threat to Evangeline then. Tonight, though … I shuddered. He made up for it, his fingers—both icy cold and fiery hot—sucking the magic and life out of me, draining whatever scrap of a soul I had left, destroying my will to keep fighting.

  For the first time in a hundred and twenty years, giving up felt like a viable option.

  The sound of crunching snow told me that someone was giving me fair warning upon approach. Mage … I could tell by her short, quick strides. Staying on my knees, I pivoted to meet her calm expression, revealing nothing about her thoughts as per usual. For just a second, angst stirred in the pit of my belly. I wondered if she would be upset that I hid Wraith from her. Her stoic, unrelenting friendship had been my saving grace in all of this. Since our days in Manhattan, I felt no need to keep anything from her.

  “I understand why you didn’t tell me,” she said, as if plucking the thought
from my head. “What a horrendous thing to deal with.” My chest heaved. Again, Mage knew just what to say.

  I offered her a sad smile. “I’m so glad we didn’t kill each other when we had the chance, Mage.”

  She smirked and her glistening white teeth gleamed in the moonlight. “Yes, that worked out well for both of us.”

  I rubbed the wet flakes off my face as I nodded in agreement, turning back to stare at the tombstone. “It could’ve been worse. At least I was able to lock him up until now. Can you imagine if he’d roamed free for the last five years?”

  Mage gave a small shudder. “Plus, he’s a natural Viggo repellent. That one has already fetched the plane and is preparing to leave as we speak.”

  “Viggo doesn’t like being around things he can’t kill.”

  “How unfortunate for us,” Mage’s lips twisted, lifting my mood marginally.

  “Mortimer’s going with him?”

  She nodded.

  I sighed. “That’s good.” I can’t believe I’m beginning to trust Mortimer. “I hope that lends enough common sense. At least it’ll keep the two of them away from Evangeline. Maybe they’ll deal with this Jonah problem before it gets out of control.”

  “And do you think they’ll listen to you and stay away from the house?”

  I paused to give that a moment’s thought. “Well, with Viggo … you always have to be worried about what that psychopath will do, how he can get around a pledge and still hold his head high. But they pledged their allegiance and I have to believe in that. We have enough to deal with here. Did Lilly and her group agree to leave as well?”

  Mage nodded again, confirming. A nervous tickle stirred inside me, the same one that had irked me since the day we decided to reach out to Viggo’s arch nemesis for help.

  “Do you trust them, Mage? Lilly, I mean. We all know she tipped off the witches about Evangeline in the city, right? Gave her a chance to isolate Evangeline. It was a stupid move but … I don’t doubt it for a second.”

  There wasn’t a moment’s hesitation before Mage nodded. “Yes, she likely did. I’m sure she also had the entire situation under control. They are our best hope. Lilly has connections you do not. She has advantages that you do not.”

  Mage was correct in that. Though I had a multitude of resources at my disposal, Lilly had the added advantage of appearing a small, harmless child. She didn’t even require compulsion and threats. Most people barely noticed her quiet, unassuming presence as she stealthily gathered intel. I’m not sure the Sentinel was even aware of her, to be honest.

  I couldn’t help but notice the vagueness in Mage’s words. “Our best hope,” I mimicked. What if our best hope was no hope at all? “We are … what … thirteen? We’re to stop a secret society of witches and Sentinel, numbering in the tens of thousands, their grubby little fingers on ten thousand buttons, any of them able to start a chain reaction that will obliterate the human world.” It sounded so insane, so far-fetched, so impossible, and yet it had already happened. I had sent Evangeline into a world seven hundred years after that exact situation.

  Running my fingers through my hair, I peered back at the dim lights of the chateau where Wraith was no doubt quickly becoming a nuisance—a lethal one. “What’s Evangeline doing?”

  “Trying to drink herself into a coma, from the looks of it.”

  I shook my head with dismay. “She’s an absolute wreck …” Emotionally, mentally, physically …

  “How long before the transition is final?” Mage asked as softly as possible, and yet it impaled me like a pitchfork through the gut.

  “I don’t know … hours? Days? Weeks?” And then she would be lost to me. “I can’t even heal her damn face!” I screamed suddenly, clenching my teeth with rage, my fingers digging into the frozen ground to grip the edges of Nathan’s tombstone. I ripped it out and launched it across the courtyard. It shattered into a dozen pieces. Like my life with Nathan.

  I slumped to the cold ground as Mage sped over and began collecting chunks of concrete. “Yes, this issue with her magic is becoming a real problem.” She stacked the pieces on top of each other, fitting them together until they resembled a tombstone again. “She’s so fragile when we need her not to be so … human,” she finished with a sigh. “What can we do?”

  I shrugged noncommittally, staring up at the dark sky looming over us, letting the cold flakes land on my irises without flinching. It had to be after midnight by now. “It’s Christmas,” I announced, my words hollow.

  “Well, then, Merry Christmas, my friend” Mage patted my shoulder.

  I snorted, reaching into my jeans pocket to pull out a small red velvet pouch. “Evangeline’s Christmas present … I don’t know why I bothered …” I let the bag slip from my fingertips. It tumbled and landed in the cold snow. “Evangeline can’t go on like this anymore. This will kill her. And I can’t go on like this anymore. I need to end this somehow … I need to fix this.” I gritted my teeth as a hundred and twenty years of disastrous mistakes cycled through my mind. How many times had I tried to fix something, only to make it worse? There was no fixing! I was a pawn, a useless twit.

  “These damn Fates! They sit up there in their ivory tower, twisting and perverting everything until it’s more horrific than it was to start with. I need a fair shot!” My voice was rising, echoing in the cold night air. “Oh, what I would do if I ever met them face to face …” I threatened in a low growl.

  Abruptly, the ground fell out from under me. I was falling, tumbling in darkness. I grappled with the air around me and quickly learned there was nothing to grab a hold of, nothing to slow me down. Deeper and deeper I went, picking up speed as I fell farther into the black hole.

  Then, for the first time in one hundred and twenty odd-years, I lost consciousness.

  12. Full Disclosure—Evangeline

  Thump, thump, thump … A man with a drum had taken up residence inside my head and he was pounding on his instrument as if it kept his heart beating. I groaned into my pillow. What’s that … ugh! My mouth tasted terrible. Something may have died inside there last night.

  Why are humans so bloody stupid? The sound of Max’s low rumble in my head only made the pain worse. You know that alcohol will make you sick so, what do you do? You guzzle an entire bottle as if it’s going to spontaneously combust if not consumed in record time!

  I groaned feebly again. “Don’t give me that daddy werebeast lecture. Just make it stop! Please!” I moaned, gripping my forehead with both palms and squeezing tightly.

  It could be worse, you know, Max continued, not at all sympathetic to how his special telepathic ability was torturing me at that moment. At least you threw up last night. That got most of the alcohol out of your system.

  I felt my face screw up as I raked my brain. “I threw up last night?” I didn’t remember throwing up. I didn’t remember … much of anything.

  Yeah, Caden and Bishop took turns carting you back here. What a train wreck! You weren’t in here thirty seconds before you stumbled for the bathroom. Of course you plowed into the wall but …

  The pain in my head instantly dulled, replaced by another excruciating pain—mortification. I gasped out load and my hands flew to my mouth. “Oh my God! Max, did Caden see me puke?”

  “Only enough to make sure you hit the bowl,” a male voice called out. I lifted my head to see Caden leaning against the door, jade eyes sparkling, looking as striking as ever in an untucked dark blue button-down shirt and dark jeans. It made the entire situation ten times worse.

  I flopped down into my pillow and pulled the covers over my head, intent on hiding for the rest of the day, praying that the man with the drum would bash my brains in and be done with it.

  “Merry Christmas!” Caden’s voice boomed from somewhere above me.

  “Bah humbug.”

  “Don’t be silly.” The bed sank under Caden’s weight and I felt him tugging at the covers. My fists curled around the folds, resisting, but he finally won out, yanking
them clean from my grip. With my face exposed, I noticed his gaze briefly skim my jaw. I wondered what it looked like today. It didn’t hurt nearly as bad but maybe that was because it now had competition with an unruly hangover.

  Did something die in here? Max murmured and noticed his black nose twitching. You can shower anytime, you know.

  “Oh my God, this is getting worse by the second,” I cried, curling up like a possum, burying my face in my arms.

  “What?”

  “Max just told me I smell like a corpse …”

  The bed began shaking, sending waves of nausea through me. Caden was laughing. “Here,” he said, “take this.”

  Suspiciously, I peeked out over my arm to see Caden’s hand cradling two small blue pills. A glass of water sat on my bedside table. “They’ll help with the pain.”

  “Just the words I want to hear right now.” Without thinking, I reached for the pills but then froze midair. His hand, his skin … my touch. Was today the day that I transformed? Was today the day I’d kill Caden?

  Before I could pull back and ask Caden to place the pills on the counter, his hand lifted to stroke my cheek. Jerking back, I held a gasp, waiting …

  Nothing.

  I wouldn’t kill Caden today.

  A lifetime of air released from my lungs. I greedily snatched the two pills out of his hand and threw them back. Caden sat quietly while I polished off the tall glass of water. I had never been so parched before in my life. “Why on earth does anyone do this to themselves more than once?”

  Caden’s hand found its way to my knee and kneaded gently, sending electricity through my body.

  “Where’s Bishop?” Can’t forget about my fake relationship! It would look bad to him if he were to walk in on this …

  Caden offered a tight-lipped smile as he pulled his hand away, pulling my heart out of my chest with it. “Last-minute Christmas shopping.”