Phantom Eyes

by Scott Tracey

  “I’m not playing at anything,” I said, my voice harsh. “Lucien doesn’t know yet. That’ll give Grace a little bit of an advantage. But being in the lighthouse will give Lucien one, too. He won’t be bound so tight.” One I could handle. But not both. Each of them had worlds of experience on me, and the times I’d gone against them I’d just barely survived. If they decided to set aside their differences and destroy the upstart who’d brought them together, there wouldn’t be enough left of me to scrape off the floor.

  Jade’s expression hardened, and she turned to look out the window. “I want to see her suffer. She attacked you, she killed Drew … I just … someone should be there to make sure he gets justice.”

  “Oh.” I saw the expression on Riley’s face. She remembered what had happened to Drew. She knew who was responsible. Dammit!

  “Stop here,” I told Trey, even though we were still blocks from the cemetery. “I’ll go the rest of the way on my own.”

  Trey met my eyes in the rear view mirror, his expression perturbed. “It’s just a couple of blocks. Relax. You’ve got this.”

  “Drew’s—” But I didn’t let Riley finish. I whirled on her, got in her face.

  “Not another word. Just shut up. Shut up! You’ve been in a hospital bed talking like a lunatic for over a month!” I don’t know where the rage came from, but it poured out in my words, fed by the guilt sweating out through my skin and the self-loathing that had been eating away at my insides.

  I was close to losing it. I had to get out of the car, which was suddenly smaller than it had been moments before. Legs pressed up against mine on both sides, it was a million degrees, and there wasn’t any oxygen. I opened my mouth to take a breath, but there was nothing there. Just bodies, shifting at my sides, pressing in on me. Questions lobbed over my head. Panting breaths that weren’t doing a bit of good. Too much. Too much too much too much too—

  Red and violet sparks burst out of the console, the emergency brake yanked up and the power siphoned into the sky like a strike of reversed lightning. Rotting guilt, suspicion, so guilty oh so guilty put on the cuffs burning against the skin soft melodies and hot spilled hearts weighed against everything that was to come. Crystal eyes like the Library at Alexandria, filled with books worlds memories than any thousand lifetimes before. Eyes that are not eyes, silvered mirrorglass, eyes sharing burden though burden is unspoken.

  My hands covered over my face, my head pressed down over my knees, and there was air—cool air—spilling in at my sides. Time had passed, but I couldn’t be sure how much. Long enough that my heart had settled and my breaths came slow and even. Too long.

  “Braden,” Trey said softly at my side. I looked up, felt the tears on my face, and saw his expression. Stricken, but still determined. Over his shoulder, Riley and Jade were wrapped around each other, Jade having turned so that her body was between Riley and me. Like I was a threat.

  I was a threat.

  “It’s getting worse,” I whispered.

  Trey didn’t put it into words, but he nodded. “That’s the thing that you’re afraid of, isn’t it? Whatever it is that you’ve been running from. Ever since your uncle died.”

  I hadn’t told anyone about the vision. About what I could become. At least not the people in my real life. Lucien knew, of course. And Grace. But I thought if I could shield the rest of them, if I could keep this deep, dark secret away from them, they wouldn’t look at me the way Jade looked at me now.

  I closed my eyes, and felt something burn out inside of me. “She told Jade.” It wasn’t even a question. It didn’t need to be. I knew from the moment that Riley had opened her mouth that they were going to find out. Riley was going to tell everyone what I’d done to Drew, and worse, she was going to tell them why. That I’d done it to get my power back, that Drew’s friendship had been weighed against my need to be special, and lost.

  “Are you okay?”

  I opened my eyes again. Trey was still looking at me like I was the one who needed comfort. He wasn’t surprised by any of it. “How long have you known?” I asked dully.

  “Long enough,” he said quietly. “You could have told me.”

  “Ever notice that I don’t tell people a lot of things I could?” I asked. Lucien would be here any time, it wouldn’t be good for him to find me having a panic attack, or even a heartfelt conversation in the back of Trey’s car. “The more I talk about … anything, the more chance there is that it all gets screwed up.” I sighed. “I screw everything up.”

  “Ever notice that things get that way even without you?” Trey asked. “Not that I’m not saying you do more than your fair share, but really. You don’t have a monopoly on being an idiot.” He patted me awkwardly on the knee and then turned around to deal with his sister. I don’t know what he said to her, and the truth was that I didn’t want to know. The last thing I wanted to deal with right now was Jade knowing what I’d done to Drew. Riley bit at one of her fingernails, having tucked her hair up into a brown knit cap sometime after getting out of the car.

  There were so many variables, so many different ways that tonight could go off the rails. But there were a few things that absolutely had to happen. The confrontation had to take place in the lighthouse, I had to do it by myself, and … I had to say goodbye before I went.

  But runaway emotions interrupted before I could accomplish any of those things. “Is it true?” Jade demanded, the moment I was out of the car.

  “Jade—”

  I heard the slap before I felt it. Saw the shimmering line of tears before I saw the animosity in her eyes. It was like it happened to someone else, that was how disconnected I was. I pressed a hand against my cheek, feeling the warmth like it didn’t belong to me.

  “That’s not helping,” Trey snapped, moving in between us. Jade huffed and opened her mouth to argue before she gave up and spun around on her heel. When she tried to put an arm around Riley and pull her away, Riley resisted.

  “I have to go to the grave,” I said, numb to what I should be feeling. “Lucien will meet me there.” Maybe goodbyes weren’t such a good idea after all. “I’m sorry,” I told her, even though I wasn’t sure I was. “I had to.”

  “Braden, shut up.” Despite everything, Trey still had my back. I didn’t get it.

  I made sure to look Jade in the eye. If Riley was to be believed, I wasn’t going to make it out of here anyway, so why not. Maybe if I made her hate me—maybe that hate would be better than anything else she might feel. She wouldn’t have to miss her friend when she could hate the guy who stole her kid’s father away. Maybe my death could give her some comfort. It was better if I deserved it. Cleaner.

  “I made a deal with Grace,” I said, only looking at her. “She’d fix me, and all I had to do was open the door so she could come back through to this world. But it took a lot to do what she did in the first place. And it would cost a lot to bring her back. I knew that, and,” I swallowed, “I did it anyway.”

  She stared at me like she’d never seen me before. Like the last four months had been a lie. And maybe she was right to do that. Maybe they were. “How?”

  I knew instinctively that the question was “how could you?” but I chose to answer “how did you do it?” instead. “With a knife,” I said simply. “Grace made the Shifter line as a backup. A way out if she couldn’t get back on her own. But no one ever had the juice to make it across before. Until me. So she needed an escape, and I provided it.” I held up my hand, palm out, like she could still see the blood that had pooled against my skin, hot like betrayal.

  “That’s enough,” Trey said, pushing me towards the cemetery. “Go home,” he snapped at his sister. “The keys are still in the car. Take Riley back to the hospital and then just go home.”

  “No, wait,” Riley said, trying to twist around Jade, who was suddenly blocking her like this was a football game, and not a goodbye.

  “Come on, Riley, you need your rest.” Jade looked like all the fight had drained out of her.
>
  “But he’s got it all wrong,” she said, a hint of her old fire stirring to life.

  “No, he doesn’t,” Jade said quietly. They were a strange pair, Riley in street clothes and boots, while Jade still wore her dress and jewelry. “Drew’s gone.”

  “And Braden will be too,” Riley insisted, squirming around Jade. Once Riley slipped past her, she charged towards us, her limbs flailing awkwardly as she ran for probably the first time in a month.

  Trey caught her easily enough, scooping her up by the waist, under some misguided belief that Riley was going to hit me. But really, if Riley wanted to try punching me in the face, she wouldn’t be able to do half the damage that Jade could have done.

  But Riley didn’t have revenge on her mind. Once Trey had settled her back on the ground, she looked up at him and announced, “He’s not planning on coming back.”

  That was why Riley hadn’t said anything before. She wanted to wait until the last possible minute and rally a defense. I might have talked my way out of it if I had more time. But the demons under my skin were starting to itch, and I couldn’t avoid them for long.

  Trey wasn’t an idiot. And Riley might have been recently crazy, but she was insistent enough that he glanced over at me before looking back at her. “What do you want me to do about it?” Because it was clear that Riley wanted something.

  “Braden thinks—”

  “Enough of that,” I whispered harshly, looking around the cemetery. There was no telling what kinds of ears were listening in. I concentrated on a silvery web, drawing the magic into a complex pattern that created a bubble. For a moment I considered only including the three of us, but whether or not she hated me, Jade was still a part of this in her own way, so I extended the bubble to include her. I lined the spell with tiny bits of demon power. Not enough to make me lose control, but enough to ensure that no one would be able to spy through the fringes of the spell.

  “Braden thinks he can trap them in the lighthouse with him. Maybe they’ll kill each other, maybe not,” Riley said, the moment the spell was solid enough to keep us under the radar. Almost like she knew the spell was done. How much of what we did to her left a mark? I wondered. Lucien had suggested that she wouldn’t be exactly the way she’d been before the attack, but there’d been no suggestion about how different she’d be.

  Trey turned on me. “I thought the plan was to get them to attack each other,” he said.

  “It is,” I nodded, shooting Riley another glare. Why was she trying to make this as difficult as possible?

  “And then?” he asked icily.

  And then I rot for eternity next to the two of them, unless one of them gets frustrated and kills me first. But either way, the city is saved.

  “It won’t work,” Riley said. “He won’t come back out. And then they’ll both be free.”

  “It’s fine, Riley,” he said consolingly, patting her on the arm. But his eyes stayed on me. He knew she was telling the truth.

  Trey might have been willing to stand around and spend the night wringing his hands about what had to happen, but I wasn’t. There was a war struggling across Jade’s face, competing feelings gaining and losing ground so fast it was hard to tell what she was thinking. She, too, seemed to be taking Riley at face value.

  “There has to be a balance!” Riley shouted from behind me as I stalked away. “Why won’t anyone listen to me? You can’t just topple the scale! You’ll be the one that gets stuck, and they’ll be free!”

  I hurried faster, like if I could just get far enough away, her premonitions of doom wouldn’t be able to catch up to me.

  Lucien was waiting at Grace’s monument when I arrived, Trey hot on my heels. The demon looked up at my approach, his smirk already drawn tight against his face. “Cute,” he said, nodding towards the inscription. Even a Pawn can topple a King. “Is this supposed to be some kind of message? You’re going to hobble me the same way that bitch did?”

  I had crossed the worlds twice before, stepped across the veil and entered the lighthouse. But neither time had I opened the portal myself. But I found it wasn’t nearly as difficult as I expected. The demon power in me knew how to bend time and space, and the magic made it all happen.

  “Funny. I guess everyone’s got to be somebody else’s bitch.” I shrugged and gave Lucien a grin. “Don’t worry, it’ll be funnier in a moment.”

  It took even less time to unlock the last wellspring. The first one had been hidden here, underneath Grace’s monument. The second had been hidden underneath the bay, just past the lighthouse. And the third was south of the city, in the heart of a forest that I’d never been to. But I didn’t need to be there to do this. Now that the power was inside of me, I could open the last wellspring at any time, from anywhere.

  Lucien’s eyes widened. He could feel the power being stirred up from deep under the earth. He probably thought that I was going to summon it all and devour it right in front of him. He thought wrong.

  A cascade of green and gold energy flowed out of the forest and high into the air, creating an aurora borealis effect over the city. As the power started to fall back to earth, it approached the cemetery with blazing speed.

  But it swept past me. Swept past Lucien. It flowed right into the portal and into the lighthouse itself, just like I had planned.

  Lucien looked at me in shock, and then he barked out a laugh. “And finally the boy falters. The lighthouse is my domain, you idiot. And with that part of my power restored, I’ll crush you easily.” And then he smiled. “But I won’t be quick about it. We have some things to settle between us still.” And then before he could see a reaction out of me he leapt into the power and vanished through to the other side.

  Trey was at my side. “He still doesn’t know?”

  “He will in about three seconds.” I turned to him. “You’re not going. You’re staying here and making sure your sister and everyone else is safe. I’ll close the portal from the other side. Then you’ll be safe.”

  “Not going to happen,” Trey said, glaring down at me. “If you wanted them protected, you shouldn’t have voided my deal with Lucien. Besides, I’m not letting you go on your own.”

  “Trey, I can’t protect you in there,” I insisted. “This isn’t part of the plan.”

  “Yeah, well, Riley says your plan sucks. So we’re going with a new plan.” He eyed my forehead. “You’re sweating. It’s taking a lot out of you to open that portal, isn’t it? After everything else you’ve already done tonight, are you really going to waste what you’ve got left keeping me back?”

  “Fine,” I said, glaring at him. Riley’s words rang in my ears. Balance. How was I going to manage any of it? “But I swear to god if you die in there, I’m going to kill you.”

  He leaned over and kissed me quickly. “For luck,” he whispered.

  We entered the lighthouse. Together.

  Trey and I emerged directly into the lantern room of the lighthouse.

  “What in the fallen Hells is this?” Lucien asked from just in front of me. I couldn’t see his face, but I could hear the broken shock. What would it be like, to be a demon who had total purview over the future, and to yet be blindsided by something you’d never seen coming?

  “Close your mouth, darling,” a cold voice cut in smoothly. Grace stood in front of us, the veil pulled away from her face for once. The wellspring magic had darkened her eyes until they were more black than red, but here and there were hints of fire. “And say hello to an old friend.”

  “This isn’t possible.”

  “You challenged my ideas about ‘possible’ a lifetime ago. It pleases me to return the favor.” Grace looked past the demon that started all of this and focused on me. “And if it isn’t my little Judas, all dressed up with nowhere to go. You should reconsider your scheme, boy.”

  My contract with her was crumpled in her hands. She nodded behind me, and behind us the portal flared into activity again. Jade and Riley emerged from the other side, though neither of them
looked too happy about it. It wasn’t until the figure behind them appeared that I realized what had happened. Just how screwed I was. At first I thought it was Elle, and maybe I could sweet-talk something out of her, but the shape emerging into the lantern room was too tall, too broad shouldered.

  The man had a gun in his hands, and it was pointed at one of the girls. He smiled, dipped his head, and murmured “My lady” in respectful tones.

  The man working for Grace was Matthias.

  thirty-six

  “Isn’t it interesting,” Matthias said, “a hundred years in Belle Dam and finally everyone’s paying attention to old Matthias. Bargains keep coming in from all sides. The Rider wants a parley, the Widow wants an ally, and the Witchling wants a mentor. But no one wonders about what Matthias wants.”

  I kept my face schooled in indifference. Lucien took a step forward, and I grabbed the fabric of Trey’s shirt as I pulled him to the side. Putting distance between us and the others, and giving me a better shot at defending him.

  I just hoped everyone would keep their heads for a few minutes more. The lantern room was crowded, seven bodies packed inside. Beyond the broken wall, the storms beyond in a jagged fury like I’d never seen before. Jade was looking out through the broken glass in curious horror. Riley was staring, too, but in her I saw the look of someone who knew what was out there. Who could see the shapes writhing behind the clouds.

  They shouldn’t even be here. Were they supposed to be hostages? Trey would have already been enough leverage. With Matthias closest to the portal, there would be no getting back to the other side without going through him.

  There was too much power collected in the lighthouse, I thought, biting down on my lip. Too many of us with power. Grace by herself was nothing, Lucien the same, but now each of us held the core of Lucien’s power. Matthias was nothing to sneeze at, though, and with the girls and Trey here … there was too much chance someone would get hurt.

  The tension in the air only seemed to make the storms rage faster. Somewhere out there the Riders were doing whatever it is they did. Fighting. Killing. But they had to know we were here by now. The power lurching inside me hummed in resonance. Darkness churned in the distance.