by Tara Brown
“I can see that.” I can hear the smile in his voice even though I can’t see him past the shower curtain. “I’ve always been around nakedness. Sports teams are brutal.”
I wrap in the towel, “How old are you?”
He doesn’t answer right away. “Old, hundreds of years old, I think. It’s taken me ages to get to this age. Apparently, the angel blood will freeze it here. I’m fully grown, so I won’t age anymore. Not like my mom and Fitz, who are older now, hundreds of years later. I did the majority of my growing recently. I was stuck in a ten-year old’s body forever. Then I hit that puberty stage about a decade ago. I got to go to normal school. I guess it’s common for my family. But mom said Maggie has stayed at the ten year old level for a shorter amount of time. Apparently she is about to bloom.” He turns off the shower and pulls back the curtain, “We stay young for a long time, innocent. When we hit puberty, we age normally for a decade and then it slows down again. For me it’s stopped.”
I pass him a towel, fully staring at his naked body. He is like a sculpture, perfect and chiseled. His body is artwork. It makes me think things that are not quite pure. I have to turn away before I touch him, hurting myself.
I nod, “I’ve aged normally all five of my lives, I think if I was let to live, I would be like you. I would stop aging when I was done developing. I always die though.”
It stings a little to say that.
I walk from the bathroom before he can try dosing me in pity. I don’t want it. The house belongs to people a little older than us, by the clothes. I pull on two pairs of yoga pants, a Henley and a sweater, and thick wooly socks.
I pick him out a pair of thick jogging pants, a tee shirt, and a hoodie. He pulls it on and we head for the kitchen. I grab a yogurt cup from the fridge and pass it to him. He eats it fast. We raid their fridge for several minutes. Eating in silence and staring at the wall.
“Is this how you live when you’re on the run?”
I nod.
“That’s sad, Rayne.”
I nod again.
He grabs my arm, turning me to face him, “Never run from me again, I’ll take care of you.”
I smile, pulling my arm from his grip to stop the sickness. “Don’t smack me around, lie to me, or let your mom break my arms and we have a deal.”
He looks serious, “How many times, Rayne?”
I smile, “One more.”
He steps closer, smelling like cherry yogurt and orange juice. He runs a hand down my cheek, making me almost gag. “I have never been more sorry for anything in my life. I hate myself and who I am for ever hurting you or betraying you.”
I smile up at him, “Nope, still gonna be one more.”
He laughs, “You’re a shit.”
I nod, “I know it.” I walk past him, stealing mail from the fridge.
“You steal their mail too?”
“And their car. I have to have a way to send them money.” I open the shoe closet and pull on a pair of sneakers. I pass him a pair.
We shrug on coats and walk out into the cold winter air. He starts the car in the driveway and we leave for Salem. It is only a few miles from where we were.
He parks it and we walk in the dark. I notice suddenly, now that we’re in a busy area, how bad things are. Windows are broken in stores, houses are burned out and charred, cars are smashed and looted.
“It’s like hell on earth.” I whisper.
He steps closer to me as we walk in the direction his nose is telling us to. We get into an alley between two old houses, and suddenly I feel something I can’t explain. It’s like being gutted or exploding from the inside. I double over in pain.
“Why are you here?”
Wyatt turns around towards the female voice but I can’t. I am stuck in agony.
Wyatt’s voice is angry, “We are looking for the fire witches; we need to find the air witches. The nixie told us to come here. Now stop or I’ll kill you, and it won’t matter why we’re here.”
My wings shoot from my back, uncontrollably. I cry out as they do it, but the pain she was inflicting upon me is gone.
“How?” She sounds stunned. I gag a little and turn to face her.
“You bitch, that hurt.”
She shakes her head, “You are the sin eater. How is this possible?”
I step closer to her, seeing the resemblance to the fire witch I met before. I give her a hard look, “I will kill you if you don’t answer my questions, do you understand me?”
She nods, completely baffled.
I swallow hard, still a little out of breath, “I need you to do two things.”
She nods again, terrified or just completely confused.
I look back at him, “I need you to handfast us and I need you to take me to the air witches.”
She is conflicted but she agrees with a single nod. She looks badass. Piercings in her nose and lips. Her hair is black with red streaks and her eye makeup is excessive. She is a Goth, a beautiful Goth.
“I’m Lila.”
“Are you the head of the witches?”
She shakes her head, giving Wyatt a deadly look, “You sure you want to handfast with that?”
I laugh, “I am.”
Her eyes glow like mine but brighter, “You know what he is, right?”
“Yeah. He’s a Van Helsing. I know the stories.”
She shakes her head, “He’s an angel like you. You can’t trust them, Rayne.”
I scowl, “How do you know my name?”
She gives me a cocky grin, “I heard about what you did for my sister. You sucked the death from her. I just never knew you were an angel. She missed that part of the story.”
Wyatt steps closer, “Tell us how to find the air witches.”
I smile, “He means please. Please show us how to find the air witches.”
She laughs, “Let’s go to meet the others first.” She looks at our clothes, “You’re going to need to change. You can’t do a ceremony in that outfit. Not since it’s the second shot and, technically, it shouldn’t be able to be redone.”
She takes my hand and pulls me into the side door of the creepy old house. We go down into the basement and through an old tunnel. She looks around, like she can see like I can. “This was once the way out of the city. The witches who ran during the trials came through these tunnels. We learned after the European trials to build a way out, before we built houses. The American Witch Trials were nothing, compared to the European. Of course the trials never killed many real witches. Only healers, wet-nurses, mistresses of men who got caught, and women who were too beautiful. The churches assumed they were witches because they tempted the men. Of course if I am a married man and I want a woman more than my own wife, that makes her a witch. Heaven forbid any of them admitted to being weak. Men would rape women and call them temptress witches. It was sick. We fled Europe during that time, fled for the East Coast. I killed as many of the bad men as I could, but when they brought in the witch hunters, I had to leave. We all did.” She looks back at Wyatt, “None of us can fight off a Van Helsing, not unless we have a full coven. Back then, women weren’t practicing in covens, too easy to get caught.”
Wyatt cocks an eyebrow, “You do realize I wouldn’t have been born during that time. I can’t take blame for things in the 1500s and 1600s.”
She points a long black nail at him, “Changes nothing, Van Helsing. Nothing. You and your kind…”
I cut her off and step in front of her, “He is my kind. He isn’t their kind, trust me.”
Her dark, and yet glowing, eyes flicker between the two of us. She smirks, “You defend him?”
I nod, “He is mine to criticize and torment.”
Wyatt leans over me, “That’s right. Only she gets to make my life hell. Trust me, she’s doing a bang-up job.”
Lila cackles perfectly, though it doesn’t suit her beautiful face.
She nods towards the end of the tunnel, “Let’s go. They aren’t going to be excited we brought him with u
s.”
She opens the heavy steal door that I would have figured would be old wood but once we are beyond it, I understand perfectly. We are in a cellar under an old house, but it is a shop of sorts, a magical shop.
She claps her hands and the candles everywhere light up. The room is spooky and mystical. Willow would have dug it here.
I shudder from the feeling in the air.
“Show yourselves, sisters. He cannot harm you. He is guarded by his love of the sin eater and his angel bloodline.”
Women start appearing out of nowhere. The room is full suddenly.
We all stand there, looking at each other but no one speaks. I feel the nausea in my stomach from him being too close. His chest and stomach are pressed against my back. He’s gauging the room to fight our way out. I can almost smell it on him, not fear but fight.
I reach back, taking one for the team and hold his hands with my own, “He is mine.”
They make faces and whisper amongst themselves.
“Does it not hurt, sin eater?”
I nod, “Near-death bad.”
The older witch with the white hair in the corner nods at me, “You wish us to handfast, even though you just broke it?”
“We do.”
“Why?” she asks and the others nod in agreement.
I shrug but Wyatt speaks, “I fasted our hands without her knowledge of what it meant. I forced it. This time I have asked as is your custom, on my knees.”
They all look disgusted. A dark-haired one points at him, “Typical man. That’s how many a witch was made a slave in the old days. A handfasted witch cannot use her magic on her husband, nor can her coven sisters.” She gives us a sickening smile, “But it wasn’t ever hard to find a sister somewhere to smite his ass like he deserved.”
They all cackle. They are more like the witches I expected in the world. Not the sneaky faces of the earth witches or the deceptive beauty of the nixie. No, the fire witches are Gothic and slightly haggard in some cases. There is very little beauty to go round. Instantly, I remember something I once read. The beauty of a witch shows on the inside and the out. It was on the wall, somewhere? Willow’s cottage, in the picture maybe. I can see the darkness of them.
One of the witches, a particularly pretty one, smiles at me, “My sister is the one who fasted you last time. You saved her life. For that we are grateful, and we will spell your wishes.”
I look around at the older ones but they seem satisfied by her words, like she is in charge.
They step to the side, making a path for the door on the far side. “There are wedding clothes in the room there. Go and change. Lila will bring you up to the hallowed ground.”
Lila leads the way to the door. She opens it and goes inside. I follow her, feeling Wyatt hesitate as we cross into the room.
The door closes. Lila smiles at him, “Nervous we won’t let you out?”
He gives her his sexy, confident smile. “You can’t hurt me. The dark-haired one spoke an oath, it’s spelled. I felt it on my skin.”
She cocks an eyebrow, “Did I mention that I just love that you’re half angel? I think that’s fantastic.”
He rolls his eyes, walking past her to the clothes. His are dark jeans and a black dress shirt. He scowls, “I’m going to freeze up there.”
She smiles, “Awwww muffin. I’m sure we can manage a nice fire to keep you warm.”
I laugh and he gives me a look, “What happened to he’s mine?”
I shrug, “That was funny. I have a sense of humor, you don’t. It’s no biggie.”
She passes me a long black skirt with layers like a dead bride’s dress and a black corset shirt. I give her the puppy-dog eyes, “I don’t want to be cold too. It’s not funny when it’s me suffering.”
She shakes her head, “The clothes have to be black. If your underwear aren’t black, you have to take them off.”
Wyatt gives her a cocky, asshole grin. “I don’t like wearing them anyway.”
She can’t fight the attraction to him. None of them can. I can’t either. It’s one thing that he’s stop-traffic hot—it’s completely another that he’s a Van Helsing, and all things like us are attracted to him. He pulls off the hoodie and slips on the dress shirt. She turns around as he drops his trousers, with no regard for either of us. He smells the jeans, “These are clean, right?”
“Of course. They’re magic.”
He chuckles, “Well, when was the last wedding?”
She turns back around as he zips the zipper, “Not too long ago, but he only kept them on for an hour or so.”
Wyatt’s face goes still. She laughs. He shakes his head, “Not funny, witch.”
She shrugs, “Like the sin eater says, you just don’t have a sense of humor, do you?”
He steps forward, “I do, it just seems the things I think are funny offend everyone else.”
She swallows hard. I turn around with the corset over my breasts, “Can someone do this up?”
Wyatt touches me, making me jump, “Her—can she do it?”
Lila comes and does the bra and corset over it up. She whispers in my ear, “The clothes are new. We manifest them for weddings.”
I smile, “Thanks.”
She nods, “Let him sweat it out though, huh?”
I nod.
She opens a different door on the other side of the room and leaves through it. We walk up the stairs to a garden. It is dark and dreary. I can feel the wrinkled nose and disgusted look. When I see the first headstone, I gag.
She laughs, “Fire witches don’t normally need the help of the dead to seal something like this, but you two just broke one off. That leaves a stain. If we didn’t have a full coven and all our ancestors buried beneath us, we wouldn’t even be able to do it.”
We walk to where a gathering of women wearing black dresses stand around an old headstone.
I have the funniest feeling like I’m not making the right choice. The dead are there, I can feel them for the first time in ages. The other girls inside of me, the other versions of me, are gone. They are silent, probably in protest, but I don’t care. I want to touch him and kiss him and make love to him, like I never have but I know I can.
Constantine’s name whispers through my mind, but that’s the only place it is. He is not in my heart. He is not my choice, he is theirs. I do not believe in being able to love two people at once. I am hardly able to say I love Wyatt. I know I do, but my heart is broken, and I don’t know why or how to fix it.
We walk to the women who look almost like a murder of crows instead of a group of women. They are all draped in black. Mist trails through the graves and circles the women.
Lila leads us to the headstone and holds her hand out, “In the middle.”
She cuts a doorway in the circle of mist with her finger. We step through it. The dark-haired one smiles, “Hold both hands and look at each other.”
Suddenly, I see they all have unlit black candles in their hands. I wince, remembering the pain. The dark-haired one holds her hands like she is holding an orb. She chants and whispers, and as the magic brews, the flames grow higher on the candles and a ball of flames grows between her hands. She holds it to the sky; the winds come, bringing clouds and more darkness. The clouds dance and rub against each other making a low rumble in the skies. Lightning shoots from the darkest part, touching the ball of light in her hands.
Wyatt looks nervous. I feel the dead in the air, sparkling around me, excitedly.
Her crazed chants and whispers become shouts as the wind picks up, blowing the hood of her black coat down and letting her hair flow free. In giant black locks, it swings about, around her pale face as she distorts slightly and slams the ball of light into our clasped hands. We scream simultaneously. She falls back, breathless and smiling.
“The God you love wants this. He has blessed your union himself.”
I sniffle back the tears and emotions.
She reaches over, taking two daggers from the girls next to her. S
he hands me one and Wyatt one.
“Put your blood on the blade, then stab each other in the heart simultaneously.”
I shake my head but Wyatt presses the blade to my chest. I give him a look. He rolls his eyes, “It isn’t going to hurt more than the mighty God ball. We can’t die, Rayne.”
My hands tremble as I lift the sharp blade to his chest. “It’s a magical blade, Rayne.” She points, “You’ll want to take the shirts off or it hurts twice as bad. It drags the fabric through, really awful.”
I wince but he’s already pulling his shirt off. I turn and let him remove the corset, leaving me in the huge black skirt and black bra. The wind blows, making me shiver. His warm touch no longer burns, and I no longer feel sick. I realize how badly it’s been bugging me. I haven’t felt right since we took it off.
“Do you have a ring?”
He shakes his head, “Didn’t know we needed one.”
She points, “Give me that one.” She points at the ring everyone in his family has. He thinks for a second; I almost see a hesitation but he pulls it off and drops it into her hand. He looks nervous without it. She holds it in her hands, “Stab.”
I look at him, pointing the blade at his bare chest. I shake my head, “This is a bad idea.”
His blue eyes are dark and full of something I can’t quite place. It might be arrogance, but it could also be trust. I think most of his expressions look the same on his face, they have something to do with being cocky and sexy. He stabs me slightly, pressing the blade. I wince. He smiles, “One movement, just a single hard push. You ready?”
I nod, “Okay.” I take several short breaths. He nods his head, “On three. One.” I am about to chicken out and run away but my feet won’t move. “Two.” I tense up, waiting for him to do it. I know I won’t. I can’t stab him. I can’t do this. I can’t. “Three.” I cry out as he walks into my blade while pushing his into my heart. I cough blood. He does the same.
Tears drop from my eyes as the metal sits there, pressed against my still-beating heart and chest. We are close to one another, only separated by the hilt of the daggers.
Lila puts a hand on both our backs and pushes us the rest of the way. When we are chest to chest I feel something warm. It gets hotter and hotter until it’s searing my heart, and I am screaming into his chest. His whole body is tensed over mine. Somehow he manages to move his arms, wrapping them around me. He kisses the top of my head. I can’t even see him anymore through the tears flowing from my eyes. I gag again. Lila squeezes her hands in between us and pries us apart.