Phantom Eyes

by Scott Tracey

  My magic swarmed through hers, tearing spells apart faster than she could try and focus them. I saw every spell before she even had the chance to think it up. Each time, the tearing was a static shock to her system, throwing her a little more off guard. It was a hard balance, keeping one hand on my magic and the other on the demon power coursing through me. Too much power. Too volatile. This was dangerous.

  But we want Catherine contained, don’t we?

  It was getting to be too much. The winter voices were more numerous now, getting stronger in my head. I could feel my control shaking, like muscles that have been asked to do too much.

  “Enough,” I snapped, severing the latest spell and, taking another page out of Lucien’s book, creating a binding circle all around her. Unlike Lucien, though, I didn’t need a witch to back me up. I slammed enough energy around her to keep her contained, a complicated pattern of sigils springing to light beneath her, something that was pulled from the deep recesses of my power. But whether it was Grace’s memory, or Lucien’s design, I didn’t know.

  The moment the spell went up, I sagged a little. Jason was there in an instant, his arm on the small of my back. Not holding me up, but just … there. Catherine looked furious, but she glided back down into her seat with all the dignity of a queen. She didn’t act like someone who was trapped in a three-foot-wide circle.

  “What’s going on?” Jason asked, lowering his voice so it wouldn’t carry much past the two of us.

  I shook my head and gestured for him to take his seat again. There was sweat on my forehead, but this had to be done. I didn’t have a choice.

  “Do either of you even know why there’s a feud in Belle Dam?” I looked between the two of them: condescending Catherine who was too above it all to answer, and confused Jason, who had no idea where the conversation was heading. I went ahead and answered for them. “There’s a feud because someone told you there was. Just like they told your parents, and their parents. But how many people do you think actually knew why there was a feud?”

  “Oh, please tell me there’s a point to all this,” Catherine remarked, her eyes tilted toward the ceiling.

  “Part of it’s so you’d be manageable. Quiet. You wouldn’t ask questions.” I circled the table. “Never wondering why Jason was so convinced you killed his wife,” and as I circled Jason, adding, “or why Lucien was so eager to take your son away.”

  “The feud makes both of you stupid. It makes everyone stupid. How many people do you think know that witches and demons walk the streets of Belle Dam? How many people may not know that, but they know that if you want something that seems impossible, you do Jason Thorpe a favor and hope he’ll do one for you. Or that Catherine Lansing has a way of finding out secrets that no one knows. Everyone in this town buys into the delusion that it’s just a normal town, but it’s not. Everyone, including the two of you, buries their heads in the sand.”

  I dropped a manila folder filled with papers onto the desk. “That changes tonight.”

  I let the silence build, waiting for the moment one of them cracked. I knew it would be Catherine. Jason had a mountain of patience. He’d rather wait there a thousand years than allowing someone else the pleasure of seeing him crumble.

  “What is that?” she demanded.

  I faked surprise. “That? That is the contract that Lucien talked your son into signing. He gets all the magical vitamins he needs to cause trouble, and Lucien gets to dismantle his life in exchange. Sounds fair, right?”

  Catherine’s face went white. It actually wasn’t even fair to call it just white. It was more like she went from living to corpse in a microsecond. Since the folder was too far out of her reach, I did her a solid and slid a copy towards her end of the table. Then I did the same for Jason.

  The contract was longer than the one I’d signed with Matthias, and it wasn’t just ironclad, it was clad in iron, steel, titanium, lead, and diamonds. Lucien had thrown in contingencies for almost everything. Even implausible scenarios like if I somehow scooped Trey’s essence out of his body and transplanted it into someone else, the contract was still valid. If I killed Lucien again, Trey suffered. If I banished Lucien, Trey suffered. Even if I did nothing and left Lucien alone, Trey suffered.

  He’d had a few weeks in the Lansing chapel to do nothing but stew over how I’d beaten him. He’d probably spent all that time figuring out just what sorts of clauses to throw in to cut me off at the knees. But he hadn’t considered the most basic point of all. I still had one avenue I could use.

  I nodded towards the doors, where Trey stood in the shadows. He joined us in the room, and closed the doors behind him. “It’s true, I did.” He gave me a tight smile, and moved to stand opposite me on the other side of the table. “What’s this?” Trey asked, indicating the glowing circle of sigils in the carpet below his mother.

  “Know how when you’re in kindergarten, your report card is all checks and check minuses?” I waved towards Catherine. “Plays well with others. Big check minus.”

  Catherine hadn’t even lobbied a verbal protest yet, and the chance to do so had just been snatched out from under her. “This isn’t possible,” she insisted. “Why would you do something like this, Gentry?” She looked bewildered and devastated. There was even a touch of anger, like Trey had done this just to hurt her personally somehow. Like Trey would hand over his future for something frivolous.

  Then again, she might call saving my life frivolous. “I think the more important question is why you still don’t believe that your new pet demon has a hard-on for destroying your son.” Trusting Lucien wasn’t the greatest of Catherine’s crimes, but she’d enabled him to continue hurting people all over the city.

  “There—there has to be a reason,” she said, voice a bit weaker. It didn’t take her long to recover. She turned towards me, her cold eyes narrowed. “What is this meant to be, then? Some sort of intervention?” She snarled the last word with a rage that surprised me. Catherine was the ice queen. Not the out-of-control hothead.

  “Your son just told you that he sold his soul to the devil, and you think this is about me?” I glanced at Jason, who had his fingers steepled in front of him, taking it all in.

  “Braden?” Jason said my name like it was a question, but I’d learned enough about him to be able to read the question behind the question. Is this really worth it? She’s a crazy, narcissistic twit who never met an actual color scheme she liked. I may have embellished on his expression a bit. “The feud?”

  “We’re getting off track,” I agreed.

  “I would hate for him to lose his place,” she spat.

  I looked between the two of them. It wouldn’t be enough just to get Catherine in line. That was exactly why the feud was such a problem in the first place. For a minute, just one, I had to forget that Jason was my father. But was it something that he would even be okay with? Could Jason even become something more than the secrets and lies that surrounded Belle Dam?

  “Do you really think you of all people have the right to walk in here demanding change?” Catherine interrupted. “Everything horrific that happened in this town only happened once you entered the picture. Your mother’s death, your uncle’s. Those fall on your head, not mine.”

  I probably would have set her on fire if Trey hadn’t gotten there first. He slammed his fist down on the table in front of her, and shoved the contract towards her face. “Is that Braden’s signature on the bottom?” he demanded. “Is it?”

  Catherine had to shift her head back, and even though the circle should have stopped Trey from getting too close to her, a golden aura spread around his skin where it pierced the binding, but the spell didn’t falter. I didn’t know if it was my magic making allowances for Trey, or his own complementing mine, but either way it was the golden light that drew Catherine’s eyes. The manifestation of her son’s new abilities.

  Her eyes flew to Jason’s, and for the first time, I saw the fear there. Catherine still didn’t grasp what we were all doing here
tonight, but she knew the cease-fire she had with Jason was more than broken. Now he had a reason to go after her son, if he wanted. Trey being normal had kept him safe, but Trey tapping into his powers? The powers that Catherine had deliberately kept from him? That made him a target. The same way I was a target.

  “I haven’t made myself clear,” I said. “So let me tell you about what’s really going on in Belle Dam, and why the two of you have been played for suckers.” Trey pulled out his chair, and then to be a bit of a smart ass he extended his hand and did the same for mine with his golden magic. I ran my fingers through the strands as I sat. They felt like warm syrup and something more that was just Trey.

  “It started with a girl who saw things that no one else could see, and the demon that stole her future … ”

  Neither one of them spoke, and it was hard to say how much of the story they believed. Lucien, a demon older than time, and Grace, a woman still alive long after she should have died. The feud between them that had trickled down into the city, and the real issues plaguing the city.

  “You can’t possibly expect me to buy into this,” Catherine said, with a pinched expression on her face. It didn’t surprise me that she wasn’t receptive to what was really going on here. She, like Grace, had a way of only seeing things from her own perspective. It was like once she made up her mind about how the world worked, nothing could change her perspective.

  “It’s all true,” Trey said firmly, staring down at his hands.

  “You’ve seen her, then?” Catherine challenged. “This mysterious ancestor of ours with all the answers?”

  Trey looked uncertain for only a moment before his jaw hardened. “Braden saw her. She attacked him. And then she fixed him.”

  “How convenient,” Catherine said, “out of the goodness of her evil heart, no doubt. So he can’t decide who the villain is supposed to be in this little story, and we’re supposed to go along with it? Who is it this time? Lucien? Her? Me? This is one ridiculous claim after the next.”

  “D,” I said. “All of the above. You’re all the villains, in some way.” But me most of all, I thought uncomfortably.

  “So what is it you want from this little intervention?” Catherine asked. “Turn away my demon and let your father walk all over me? Do you really think I’m that stupid?”

  “You should probably stop using that word,” I said carefully. “This isn’t an intervention. It’s a coup.”

  Catherine’s whole body slowed, and her head moved at a glacial pace as she tilted it towards me. “Excuse me?”

  There was a mocking laugh that had been building in me since the first time I’d been met with Catherine’s arrogance. She really did think she was the center of the world, and finally I could make her understand. “Did you really think I need anything from you?” I shook my head. “Grace coming back means there’s a third side this idiotic feud. The only reason you’re here is because you’re going to help me clear off the board a little.”

  “Braden, what are you planning?” Jason asked skeptically.

  “That depends on what you want to hear about first. The bad part of the plan, or the even worse part?”

  “Braden.” Jason’s growl made me smile. I knew that tone of exasperation. John had used it often. But thinking of John reminded me of Catherine, and the smile faded.

  “I know you want to help, but you can’t.” I tried to be as concise and to the point as I could. Jason understood brevity. He opened his mouth to argue, but I ran over his protests. “And I can’t let you interfere, either. This is going to be hard enough without the distraction. So we’re going to compromise.” I looked at Trey, biting my lip. “And this is the part where we lose them.” Trey nodded, because I’d already told him what I was planning. Some of what I was planning.

  “I could strip the magic out of you,” I said to Catherine, “but then I’d have to do the same to him. So at least this will still be fair. I’m going to bind your powers together. You’ll still have your own power, but you won’t be able to access it unless you learn to work together. Maybe that will get you both to start using your magic a little more wisely. You’ll be able to make sure Jason can’t act against you, and he’ll be able to do the same to you.”

  There was a long silence in the room. A hundred years of hatred seeped in while we were talking, and stole the air. A dozen generations of Lansing and Thorpe ghosts crowding around at the corners, screaming their dissent.

  I knew there was no way they’d go for it. And I wasn’t surprised when both Jason and Catherine leapt to their feet with angry protests.

  I nodded to Trey, who started whispering under his breath. By degrees, both Jason and Catherine’s voices dwindled down to nothing, though they were clearly still trying to shout out their disapproval. We just couldn’t hear them. The moment they both realized their voices had been stolen, Jason and Catherine paused. I thought for sure that Jason would storm from the room, and I’d have to stop him. He remained standing but he didn’t move, surprising me.

  “You don’t get a choice in the matter, and there’s nothing to negotiate,” I added, watching Catherine carefully. Unlike Jason, she was fighting Trey’s spell. I could see him sweating across the table, and the net-like layers of magic crossing her mouth kept bulging outwards and then retracting, like a balloon being filled and then emptied. The spell finally snapped after almost a minute of this, which was about thirty seconds longer than I’d expected Trey to be able to hold out.

  “Do you really think I’ll stand idly by and let you take over my town?” she snarled.

  “I signed a contract of my own,” I said quietly, getting up and standing by the window. “This power I have? It’s only mine for a handful of days. But I’m not going to sit on it, and squander it the way Thorpes and Lansings have done for generations. I get three days in Belle Dam to do whatever I want. Understand this: I can, and will, make your life very difficult in the meantime. I will tear down every obstacle between me and what I want. It doesn’t matter if it’s people, things … or even places.”

  I turned my back to the window, the view of Belle Dam and the harbor in the distance. Catherine’s snide dismissal hung in the air.

  Now.

  It almost seemed like the windows started shaking even before the harbor caught fire, before boats and buoys exploded into kindling and ash. In my mind’s eye I watched them like a line of matches, each explosion causing the next in line. Ships passed from grandfather to grandson ignited just as easily as the rarely used luxury boats that left the dock only rarely. Catherine and Jason had a front-row view, and I had their expressions at the moment they changed.

  The building shook, the windows rattled and threatened to break, the sky became a fireball that bathed Lucien’s office in red light. The corona spread around and behind me, draped like a shroud of force and flame.

  I waited long enough for their masks to crackle, then collapse. Silence wrapped its hands around their necks, choking their words. They stared, and stared, and I did not blink. I would not be the first to look away.

  “I’m not playing around,” I said, barely a whisper. “Do we understand each other?”

  thirty

  I let them take it all in. Even Trey, who knew it was coming, was stunned into silence. In the distance, sirens screamed to life, the pitch of the fire trucks higher and longer than that of the squad cars blazing through the city.

  Thirty seconds after the blast, the phones of the two most important people in town started going off in a rapid fire stream. By mutual, silent agreement, both Jason and Catherine pulled them out and shut them off. No one said anything, and the port in Belle Dam continued to burn.

  My contract with Grace forbade me from altering the spells that had been laid into the town’s foundation. At a glance, that meant I couldn’t go around destroying the city building by building, because the lines of the city—the buildings, the streets, the woods—had been part of the binding spells that trapped Lucien. Break down those elements, a
nd the spell would start to falter.

  But the harbor wasn’t a building. It was an outpost on the water. Fair game.

  “Lucien would like nothing more than to tear through this town and cause destruction like you’ve never seen,” I said. It was a testament to how quiet the room was that my voice carried as much as it did. “If you push me, I’ll save him the trouble.”

  I relaxed my fist, and the amber glow in the office vanished as a dozen fires a mile away were instantly snuffed out. “Lucien lied about a lot of things, but he told me what the witch eyes meant. What this power meant.” I stared at the pair of them, struggling to remember the days when I’d hated one and feared the other. “It’s supposed to burn through you. To cripple you. That way, when the demons come, you’ll take any bargain they lay before you. You’ll become their instrument. I chose to become a different instrument instead.”

  “Braden,” Jason whispered, and I saw in his eyes that he knew. That all his searching, all his sacrifice had been in vain. He’d found a way for me to escape and left the choice up to me. But I hadn’t chosen him. Again. “What did you promise her?”

  “Just the three days,” I lied. Because as long as it was only seventy-two hours, it was manageable. I couldn’t think about what happened on the other end of the countdown. I cleared my throat. “If you cross me, I’ll destroy you, and I won’t even break a sweat. The harbor is your only warning.”

  “I don’t have to listen to this,” Catherine scoffed.

  I extended my hand, pulling, and something that was a glowing mesh of crystals, flames, and spirit slipped out of her like taffy. Catherine exhaled, her knuckles dug into the armrests, and her eyes widened as it drained out of her. I let it continue, let her feel the very power she clung to bleed out of her. Let her know how it felt to be helpless and weak.

  I could feel the winter voices stirring inside me, feel the malignant part of my power rising in response to the rage Catherine stoked in me. I never knew I could want someone dead so desperately, and yet struggle so hard to keep from killing her. If I lost control now, I knew she’d never survive.