by A. R. Mummey
Chapter Nineteen
I’m standing in front of a tombstone holding my mother’s hand. “Mom? Why are we here?”
“Because you’re so angry with me, darling.” An older version of myself stares back at me. I feel a deep sadness. I don’t need to read the name on the tombstone to know it’s hers.
“Mom. Really? I don’t have time for this.” She smacks me across the face before the last word is out of my mouth.
“Look at me, Lorelei, darling. There you go. This is your dream. I’m just here to help you work through this.”
“I don’t want your help.” I jerk away from her.
“Lorelei, Lorelei, Lorelei,” she sings to me. “You know why you hate her, your mother.” Dread pulls in my belly as her features shift and contort. The hair snakelike, the teeth sharp, filed, the skin putrid, dark veins popping out. “It’s because she was like me.” Thea cackles.
“You win this battle little, Lorelei, but I’ll see you soon. And I’ll make you pay for every day you cost me and every second of pain you inflicted upon me.”
I awake with a start, gasping for air, clutching my chest. I’m back in the hospital. Looking down at my battered body, the tubes, the IVs, I begin to sob uncontrollably. I’m in Hell. Pure Hell.
“Hey, shh … I’m right here.” I wheeze out a cry of surprise as Bast moves from the shadows. Slipping off her boots, she climbs in beside me, holding me as I cry. No words are exchanged as I doze in and out of sleep. Bast stays with me, and it’s just what I need. She gives me peace, but her dark hair only illuminates her pallid complexion. Worry etches her face every time she looks at me. After what seems several hours, she rolls me toward her in the bed. Her cat green eyes, dulled by her trauma, meet mine, and she throws up a ball of energy that arcs into a dome over the bed.
“To ensure no one hears this.” I nod.
“I’m going away for a while. Freya is coming with me. This will be the last you see me for a while. Look through everything else we gave you. If I find anything new, I will find a way to get it to you. I’ve stocked your apartment with more vials and ingredients and anything you might need.”
“What happened, Bast? What happened to you?”
“Eisheth—or Thea, as she’s calling herself—is one powerful bitch, Lorelei. My elemental power only slowed hers. It wasn’t enough to protect me. She hit me right in the heart, and it was like I was burning alive from the inside out. It was the most horrifically painful experience of my life. I’m not sure I know how to explain it, but I died. The fire was too much, my insides liquefied, my bones broke down, eaten away by the acidic fire she threw into me. I died. I felt it. I felt the pain leave me as nothingness consumed me. Then I felt cold. A rush, a tidal wave of cold washed over me. The iciness blanketed me, dipping into every part, pulling and stitching me back together. I felt my bones rebuild, my skin, my organs regenerate themselves from the mush that I’d become. But the coldness numbed it. The whole time I heard this man talking to me, telling me I’d be okay. I’d survive.”
“Really? I just saw flashes of light, and this man told me I’d be okay, too, but his face was blurry. Everything else was clear, just his face, like an eraser had been run over it, you know?”
“Flashes of light and a blurry face?”
“Yea, I know. Not much, right? But there was something else. I heard Thea scream, like she was frightened or in pain. There’s got to be more going on. Also, the light. It was black. Onyx.” I decide to be vague, leaving Ash out of it for the moment. In reality I’m not lying, I can only guess it was Ash.
“Honestly, Lorelei. I died. I came back from death, and here I am. Freya and I are anomalies. Two people shouldn’t wield the same power. It goes against nature. But here I am. There Freya is. You held our power for a week. We were depleted. Then after you’re fight, boom, we both have the same power. Now you say there’s another leader potentially running around with black energy, and it’s male. I don’t know. My guess? The fourth queen …. Lilith’s descendant, maybe. Just hard to accept a man having that power.”
“It would explain her fear if it were Lilith’s descendant. As for Mr. Blurry Face, I suspect he’s the guy that talked to you and me. It had to be. There’s something else. About the light. I may know something.” Making my mind up that omitting information makes me no better than Heath and my friends, I quickly run down my interactions with Detective Ash and the black embers I’d seen him emit, along with the fact that he’d been the one to tell me what I was and everything else he’d told me. She nods along slowly, taking it all in.
“If he’s still on the case, he’ll be in to talk to you. You need to confront him, Lorelei. Find out who and what he is, exactly. Trust your gut, but use your brain.” I agree, and we discuss it for a few more minutes before a random question pops in my head.
“How did we get to your house?”
“Ahh. Jo and Anabel. They brought us home. Freya banished them after. Apparently it took some time for Freya to agree to let you in the house. She was quite angry. Your friend Jo hit my dear sister, apparently pretty hard, too. Threatened to bite her. Freya was impressed. As for our mystery man, demons can mate with humans…. Maybe one of Lilith’s spawn mated on down the line, or maybe it’s something else entirely.”
“That makes sense, I guess, about the guy.” I nod, before realizing what she’d said before that. “Are you serious? Jo hates me.” I scoff in disbelief.
“Not as much as you think. That, or she at least has a modicum of respect for you. Whatever the case, Freya and Jo battled it out a little, and that was that.” Bast laughs.
“Battled? Do I want to know?” I roll my eyes.
“We’re all very formidable women. Freya was surging with new power, and she may have shocked Jo a time or two, thrown her about a little, but Jo, from what I hear, held her own.” At this, we both giggle. The image of the two women scuffling brings tears to my eyes, and I can only hope Anabel taped it on her phone for our personal entertainment later.
“Sweet baby Jesus.” I giggle.
“I know.” Bast smiles tiredly.
“Are you okay?” I ask, worried. I feel a kinship toward Bast, a sisterhood. She’s one of the few people I trust. An ache in my chest starts up as I realize Anabel and I won’t be getting warm and fuzzy anytime soon. She won’t be regaling me with the battle between Jo and Freya. I’m lost in thought when I realize Bast is still speaking, only I haven’t been paying attention.
“I’m not all bad, you know. Gifted aren’t good, and Dark aren’t evil. It’s more of a balance of beliefs. Gifted are realists. They’re practical, focus on the here and now. Dark are dreamers. We have psychics, necromancers, all sorts of paranormal stuff that Gifted scoff at. We hold on dearly to the lore. We pray to our Queen. Gifted are more scientific. They want proof. We’ve always stood against demons, defending humans. I’m a selfish person, but this power is a curse of humanity on my head. Part of me is drained from my experience with Thea, but part of me is just exhausted from leading a generation of Dark. You know what I mean?” I nod as I realize Bast is justifying herself. She’s not doing this for me, she’s doing it for herself. She wants to explain herself and let out her feelings, and so I let her.
I nod as she finishes, and we lay there within our safe bubble, in amiable silence.
“I’m sorry,” I finally say after several minutes have passed.
“Sorry? What for?”
“I shouldn’t have texted you that address. If I hadn’t, you would have never died. You’re the one person I need, Bast. I need you more than anyone. In my heart, I know we can only stop her together. But it has to be with you.” I kneel on the bed before her, silently and physically begging her not to leave me alone in this.
“Lorelei. I have to heal. I need time to re-cooperate. I’m not abandoning you.”
“Bast—”
“No, Lorelei. Listen! You held two powers within you. You displayed more power than any Gifted or Dark e
ver has. But it still didn’t kill her. She’s not just an immortal. Even immortals can die. She is a chameleon, changing herself physically, consuming powers, creating an army for who knows what. Yes, Lorelei, Anabel told me everything that’s happened from the beginning. She said she thinks Thea has an army. For what purpose? We’re on the same side, but right now we need to divide and conquer.”
“The power, when I held it within me, it was consuming,” I admit. “The moment I called upon both elements, it was like this insane rush. The power, the adrenaline, it was the biggest high I’ve ever had. I felt invincible. Like a god, Bast. It scared me. I could have torn the world apart, and I would have enjoyed every second of it. I can’t do that again. Whatever we do, in the end, we have to face her and her army as a team, I think. No, scratch that. I know it’s how we survive.”
“We need an army, Lorelei.”
“We’re the leaders of Dark and Gifted. Together we’re a species of kickass sorceresses with demon and angel blood pumping in our veins, Bast. Where we lead, our people will follow. Not only that, but we’ve already got a small band of Sang and Guardians to back us, and I guarantee there will be more flocking to us if a full-scale war erupts.” I punch her arm, and she nods in agreement, clearly still worried. I know she’s scared. I’m scared too, but I can’t focus on it now.
“There’s something else I need to tell you.”
“Go on.” I sigh deeply, rolling my eyes. What now?
“Our combined power … well, when you hit Patrick with it, you knocked Thea out of him, literally. He’s out from her spell. But,” she says quickly as I start, “I don’t know all the details. What I do know is he freaked and left after he brought you here.”
“Okay,” I say without feeling.
“Okay?” She eyes me speculatively.
“Honestly, yeah. The whole time I wanted him, I wanted him so much. It wasn’t right. I knew it, but I didn’t care. Red alerts popped up in my mind repeatedly, but I just needed him more than I needed air. It felt unhealthy, desperate even.”
“And now?”
“Embarrassed. I let him bite me. I had sex with him. He’s handsome, gorgeous even, but he’s dead.” I tuck my head down, my cheeks flushing in embarrassment as I admit my transgressions. Bast eyes me for a moment before she begins to giggle hysterically.
“It’s not funny! He’s not just dead. But dead, dead. Creepy old, too. Plus, when I think about everything from start to finish, it’s not him I feel or even felt butterflies for,” I continue.
“Anyone in particular you’re feeling all fluttery for?” she mocks, still laughing at me.
“Nothing I care to share. Anyway, I’m worried for Patrick. I care, just not in the same way. Oh, it’s all a mess.”
“Well, I need you to know,” Bast says, suddenly serious, all traces of humor gone. “I need you to know Patrick brought you here first. I think you know already, but when he went back for Nicole and Greta … they were dead. I’m so sorry.”
I feel my heart implode. Everything I did to try to save them. It was all in vain. Greta had been right. They were dead from the moment Thea set eyes on them. The tears flow like rivers down my cheeks as sobs wrack my body, but Bast forges on.
“Thea is weakened severely as you know. But she got away. She’s not only on the loose. Before she left, she put enough evidence around the crime scene to frame Patrick as the murderer, so now he has a warrant out for his arrest in connection with the case. The police need to speak to him, you, everyone.”
“Thea was in my dream. I thought she was gone, that she couldn’t get to me in them anymore.”
“A lie. She can get to you whenever she wants. Patrick was hers. His blood stopped her from killing you, sealing the link between you and Patrick. But she can enter your dreams. She’s a succubus. You can put together a concoction to have a dreamless sleep that’ll keep all succubae at bay, but you’d have to take it forever. That’s just a way they feed. Through dreams. There’s no escaping that fully. The good news is that she can’t prettify herself in dreams or reality. Anyone and everyone will see her as she truly is and not the façade she shows. She’s so damaged her abilities are limited, so she can’t do a lot of harm. But now is the time to find her and finish her.”
“How, Bast? Our combined powers didn’t work, so now what?”
“That’s partly why I’m leaving. I’m going to try to find a way. I’ll do some research and set up some allies for the future. We’re going to need them. Don’t give up, and I won’t either. We can do this together.” Bast kisses my forehead, climbing off the bed, dismissing the dome.
“Bast?”
“Yes?”
“If she’s real, so are Lilith, Naama, and Agrat. Where are they? Why don’t they stop her? We’re supposed to be linked to them. They had to have known we were and still are in danger.”
“I don’t know. But I’m going to find out. I’ll see you.” She throws her silky black hair over her shoulder as she slides on black boots and exits the room.