by Lisa Olsen
“I know it sucks, but there’s only so much we can give,” Bishop said when we were alone.
“I know, it’s just…”
“Hey, it’s okay,” he said, pulling me into his arms. “Jakob sounds like he’s come to terms with it. You have to remember, he’s lived a long, long life.”
“That doesn’t mean he deserves to die.”
“Very few do. But there are some things that even the immortal can’t cheat. We all have to go at some point. Come on, it’s getting late. Why don’t I tuck you into bed? I’m sure things will look brighter tomorrow.”
I allowed him to pull me to my feet, but didn’t move toward the stairs. “What if he dies during the day when we’re passed out?”
“Then he’ll be at peace. You heard him, Anja, he was deeply touched by your offer to try the spell again. He knows how much you care. And maybe we’ll come up with a brilliant plan at the last second and save the day? All I know is, you won’t do him any good by sitting up all day.”
“It’s still a couple of hours before daybreak,” I grumbled.
“Come on upstairs. That’s a couple of hours for me to hold you.”
I knew I’d feel better lying in his arms, but I didn’t feel like I deserved it. Why should I find comfort when Jakob had none? “I appreciate the offer, Bishop, I really do. But can I have a rain check? I think I’d like to sit with Jakob, for as long as I can stay up. Just in case.” It was the least I could do. “Do you mind?”
“No, that’s fine.” Bishop escorted me to the stairs, letting me go first as we approached the narrow stairwell.
“Do you think I’m being a baby about this?”
He stopped me on the stair, turning me by the hips so I faced him. “No, I think you’re beautiful, and caring, and sweet to think of it. If I was to die, your face is that last one I’d want to see.”
“Ah, but that’s where you have to understand – you’re never going to die,” I smiled, but he didn’t smile back.
“Everybody dies, Anja. Some of us get to live a lot longer than most, but it’s a part of life.”
“Everybody dies,” I repeated, my smile fading. He was right, it was a fact of life. “And if I die before you?”
“We’re not going to talk about that right now,” he said with a tight press of the lips. “We’re just going to enjoy the time we have together. That’s all we can do. Now go on, sit with Jakob. I’ll be there to collect you at dawn.”
Everybody dies. And my life was no more important than Jakob’s. So why was he the one making peace with death instead of me?
I knocked softly on Nell’s door before I entered, wanting to talk to Jakob about the sacrifice he’d made, and why he’d done it. Only I found him already passed out, Nelleke pacing nervously around the bed.
“Is he…?”
“He is near the end,” she said quietly, as if afraid to say it out loud.
I sat beside Jakob, picking up his hand, surprised at how cool it felt, instead of his normal blazing heat. “Jakob,” I said softly, giving it a squeeze. “Jakob, it’s Anja.”
“It is no good, he is not hearing us, I think.”
This was it, Jakob was really dying. Somehow I’d thought we’d come up with a plan at the last moment, like Bishop said. But I had nothing. Nothing, except, “Nell? What if we did the lifeforce spell with just me?”
“Then you would surely die.”
“But would it be enough to restore him?”
“I am thinking yes, your life for his. It would be enough to appease the sacrifice.”
I sucked in a long breath, my words coming out fast. “Okay then, I want you to do it.”
Her brow crumpled with concern. “Are you certain? You understand what you risk.” I felt the hope radiating out from her, and knew what my answer had to be.
“I’m the one who was supposed to do the sacrifice to break the curse in the first place, I can’t let him take my place again.”
“Is Bishop knowing about this?”
“No, and there’s no reason for him to until it’s over.” Jakob had a daughter who would be devastated by losing him. Bishop would understand why I felt the need to do what I had planned. This thing between us was new and exciting, but it wasn’t the deep, abiding love we’d shared in the past that I only remembered fragments of. He’d be sad, but he’d recover. As he’d said, everybody dies, it’s a part of life. He’d accepted that he would eventually die, he’d come to accept my death as well. Besides, he’d been willing to risk his life on the chance that the curse might come back, I could do no less.
“Very well,” she nodded. “We will meet in the hall, it is the only place of the proper size, and it is a consecrated space.”
“What about Maeja?”
“She will have returned to her personal quarters by now.”
“Give me an hour and I’ll slip away and meet you there. Will you be able to manage him on your own?”
“I am strong enough to carry him. Anja, you are sure you are wanting to do this?”
I couldn’t stop to dwell on it, I had to go with my gut. “Yes, it’s the right thing to do.”
*
Bishop looked up with a smile when I got to our room, setting aside the book he’d been reading. “Hey, you’re back sooner than I thought you’d be.”
You can do this, Anja. Just smile and act like everything’s normal. “Jakob’s already passed out. He wouldn’t know if I was there or not,” I explained, sitting on the edge of the bed to kick my shoes off. “And I wanted to be with you.”
He leaned forward, kissing my shoulder. “I want to be with you too. Maybe it’ll be good if he gets some sleep. Things might look brighter tomorrow.”
“Maybe you’re right.” I smiled back, blinking fast to keep from tearing up, but he noticed something was off.
“Hey, come here,” he said, pulling me into his strong embrace. “I know you’re sad, but it’ll be okay, I promise. We’ve been through rougher things before, at least we got to say goodbye instead of losing him unexpectedly.”
“Do you think that’s better? Or is it better for him to slip away suddenly and you hear about it later?”
Bishop let out a long breath. “I don’t know, they’re both pretty painful. Maybe it would’ve been easier to get the news that he’d died after the fact? Then maybe we wouldn’t feel like such a failure for not having done something to prevent it.”
His words only supported what I’d been thinking. “Sometimes bad things happen, and there’s nothing you can do about it,” I said softly. “Like you said, everybody dies.”
“Hey, who’s comforting who?” he chuckled, pulling back to look into my eyes. “I’m glad you’re making your peace with it. It’ll be easier for him if he can see your smiles instead of tears.”
I nodded, forcing a smile even though I felt like crying. How could I leave him? We were just at the beginning of our relationship. Okay, so that wasn’t strictly true, but it felt that way without all of my memories. If it was this hard to leave him now, I couldn’t imagine what it would feel like if I’d loved him for years. Maybe I wouldn’t be contemplating trading my life for Jakob’s. And maybe that’s the way it was supposed to be?
Maybe it was fate that I hadn’t done the spell to restore my memories or Jakob really would be completely out of options. In any case, I was grateful for the time I’d had with Bishop over the past year. It was time I never would’ve had at all if I’d been the one to break the gypsy’s curse, and now it was time to pay for that gift.
“Hey, you got awfully quiet there. Are you sure you’re alright?”
“Yes, I’m just tired. It’s been a long night.”
“How about you come to bed?” he smiled, leaning in to nuzzle against my neck. “Then maybe I can kiss it and make it better.”
But when he scooted back to make room for me on the bed, I didn’t follow. “Could you maybe just hold me for a while?”
He gave me an understanding smile. “Yeah, I can do tha
t.”
I shrugged out of my jeans, climbing in beside him in my t-shirt and panties to get comfortable. Maybe because he didn’t want to send me mixed messages, Bishop climbed under the covers pants and all, his bare feet the only nod to comfort. Wrapping me in his embrace, he kissed the top of my head before settling in with a long sigh.
I’d asked Nell for an hour because I wanted to be able to give Bishop another memory to cherish after I was gone. In my mind I guess I’d imagined a passionate encounter, but this was somehow better. Our first time together the night before (first time that I could recall with perfect clarity anyway) had been beyond beautiful, and I didn’t think I could top it. These last minutes in his arms were every bit as memorable, just in a different way. This was how I wanted him to remember our time together.
I waited until the gentle rise and fall of his chest stopped, and he’d gone as still as death. Only then did I slip out of his embrace and get dressed. I paused for long moments at the door, fixing the picture of him lying there in peaceful slumber deep into my mind. It was this picture I intended to focus on at the end.
“Goodbye, Bishop. I love you,” I whispered. It might not be the grand sweeping love I remembered feeling in the past, not yet. But what I did know about him, I loved, and it broke my heart not to have a chance to spend eternity with him. It was for the best to leave now. If I recovered even one more memory, it might be enough to rob my courage and make me not want to leave his side ever again.
I blew one last kiss before I slipped out to meet Nell.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Bishop wasn’t sure what it was that made him startle awake, but one moment he was peacefully drifting, and the next he woke to realize he was alone. It wasn’t quite dawn yet, though the sky was already beginning to lighten. At first, he assumed Anja had started feeling guilty again and went to sit with Jakob. It made him smile to think about how tenderhearted she was toward a guy she barely remembered. But it was getting late, and he’d promised to come and collect her by dawn.
Padding barefoot across the hall, he rapped gently on the door before pushing it open.
It was empty.
Frowning, a sinking feeling swept through him, and he ran through the house throwing open doors. The bathroom was empty.
Mason barely registered the entrance, but his instincts had him reaching for the gun on the bedside table before he realized who it was. “Fuck, dude. I almost blew your head off. Didn’t you ever hear of knocking before?”
“I’m looking for Anja.”
“Well, she’s not in here,” he scowled, his head hitting the pillow again, the gun disappearing beneath it.
The living room was empty and so was the kitchen. By the time he made it to the root cellar, the sinking feeling had turned into a gut churning panic that sent him outside in the pre-dawn hours with no protection, no weapons, not even any shoes. There was only one place they could be, he just hoped he’d make it there in time.
Bishop burst into the hall, frozen as he took in the scene. Jakob lay naked on the ground, surrounded by a circle and the same runes he recognized from the house in Montana. Another circle was drawn around that one, and Anja stood on one side of it and Nell on the other, chanting.
Anja’s head swiveled to face him, guilt written all over her features. Before he could move, she took a deliberate step forward, into the circle. Unstuck, Bishop raced ahead to stop her, only to come up against an impenetrable barrier separating them.
“What are you doing?” Bishop yelled, his fist beating on the unseen wall.
Anja regarded him with sad eyes, her voice muted, as though she spoke from a much farther distance. “This is the way it was supposed to be. I was supposed to be the one under the knife, not Jakob.”
She had to be kidding, didn’t she realize what she was doing? “Anja, you’ll die!”
“This is my choice to make, my sacrifice.”
“The hell it is. You have no right to do something like this, you belong to me!” he yelled, his panic rising when her face twisted with pain from whatever the spell did to her.
“This is the way it has to be,” she said, going down to her knees as the strength left her body. “I’m… grateful for… the time…” Her words gave out as she drew in a labored breath.
“Anja? Anja!” Bishop shouted when she didn’t look up. “Don’t you dare do this! Don’t you dare leave me!” He had to stop this, and the only way he could think of was to try and break his way into the circle. His arm cocked back and he struck the barrier as hard as he could. The only good it did was cause a shower of bright blue sparks that sent him flying back on his ass.
“Hva er dette?” Maeja demanded, stumbling into the hall in her nightdress, her golden hair loose and tumbling about her shoulders.
Bishop pushed himself up, sucking in a painful breath. “They’re doing the spell to restore Jakob, but it’ll kill Anja. You have to do something.”
“This can not be borne. Nelleke, I command you to stop this at once!”
Nelleke’s eyes flared wide with panic, but she didn’t stop chanting.
Recognizing an ally, Bishop appealed to Maeja. “I can’t get past the barrier, can you?”
Her eyes swept over the room, taking in the runes, the circles, the words tripping from Nelleke’s tongue. “Yes, yes I can,” she murmured.
He should’ve realized that Maeja’s agenda wasn’t the same as his. Bishop only realized her plan a split second before she moved, and by then it was too late, the dagger was already flying through the air. While the barrier kept him from stepping into the circle, it did nothing to stop the dagger, which hit its mark, sinking into Anja’s chest.
Nell’s yell of protest, Anja’s scream of agony, the way she crumpled to the floor, it was as if it happened in slow motion, with Bishop powerless to stop it. The barrier collapsed as the spell was broken without a viable sacrifice, and Bishop crashed through it, stumbling over Anja’s body.
The dagger was embedded deep in her chest, definitely piercing her lung, but not her heart, as near as he could tell. Still, it was bad. If only it’d been wood she would’ve gone into torpor, her body preserved from the damage, but the wound bled profusely. Bishop dragged her away from the circle, trying to decide if he should remove the dagger or leave it in place until he had a ready source of blood to heal the wound.
Anja’s blue eyes were wide and staring, a look of astonishment frozen on her face. “Bishop?” she whispered, but didn’t have enough air to be heard.
“I’m here. You’re going to be fine, you just need some blood.”
With great effort, she dragged in a labored breath, her voice a little stronger. “Jakob…”
“Will never live to see another day if I have anything to say about it!” Maeja roared in triumph.
Nelleke’s eyes narrowed in defiance, and she stepped into the circle, taking Anja’s place as she began to chant again.
“No!” Maeja beat against the barrier just as Bishop had, her eyes wide with fear. “I command you to stop this. I command it!”
Nelleke deliberately turned her back on her mother, the incantation flowing smoothly from her lips, though muted to those outside the circle. Bishop felt the tingle of magic in the air, and cradled Anja close, not wanting her to be struck by any wild magic if Maeja found a way to interrupt the spell this time.
But the demi-goddess appeared to be without any tricks up her sleeve, unable to hurl another object at Nell without risking her life. “Nelleke, stop!” Maeja demanded, tears streaming down her face. “I forbid it! I am your queen!”
Nell turned, the words barely audible now as she fought to get them out in her weakened state. Her hand came up to press on the other side of the barrier where her mother’s rested. Tears fell freely down her cheeks, but she couldn’t say a word beyond the incantation.
“No…” Maeja wept. “My daughter. My heart. Please…”
The last word of the incantation fell from Nelleke’s lips, and she toppled to the
ground even as Maeja screamed, her voice breaking, stripped raw. Nell’s body caught fire, consumed by the power of the spell, even as Jakob took in a mighty breath. His eyes opened just in time to see Nell’s body crumble into ashes.
“What have you done?” he cried, his voice throbbing with misery.
“You! You did this!” Maeja screeched, hurling herself at Jakob. Her fists pummeled his chest with little effect, and he caught her wrists easily.
“I didn’t wish this. I didn’t wish anyone to die in my place.” Stricken, his gaze swung around the room to find Bishop and Anja, staring at them in accusation. “How could you let this happen?”
“It was Nell’s decision,” Bishop replied. “Maeja stopped Anja from carrying through with it out of spite, and I guess Nell decided to go through with it herself.”
Maeja wrenched her arms free and whirled on Anja. “This is your doing!” She launched herself at Anja, and Bishop shielded her with his body, the best he could, prepared to take the wrath of Maeja’s attack. His body tensed for the blow that never came.
Instead Jakob caught hold of Maeja, his vigor clearly restored by the sacrifice. It made sense; descended of two Ellri, his daughter’s strength was definitely enough to heal him. “Enough,” he barked, easily maintaining his hold on Maeja. “Nelleke would not have sacrificed herself if not for your spite. You are responsible for this, not Anja. You will heal her.”
“I will not.” Her chin thrust out stubbornly, her hand cocking back to slap his face.
Jakob easily caught her hand and forced Maeja down to her knees. “If you wish to strike me down, so be it, but you will not visit your vengeance upon my Anja to slake your anger against me. You will offer your healing blood. Now.”
“Oh fine, take it then. I care not,” Maeja cried, producing another vial of her blood. She flung it in Anja’s direction, and Bishop dove to catch it before it shattered on the ground. “Take it and be gone. Leave me to my agony.”
“It is my agony as well, Maeja,” Jakob said, his grip on her easing. “Let us end this hatred in our daughter’s name.”