“Well, that was weird.” Leon whispered in my ear. I raised my eyebrows in response and we continued our way into the club.
The bass seemed to pound through my chest. The place was heaving with wall to wall sweaty partygoers. The atmosphere was electric. This would have been the perfect night out. If only we hadn’t been planning to ice a Djinn.
No wonder Milligan thrived in a place like this. There were people hooking up all over the place. Alcohol and music were the perfect recipe for lust and anger, the kind of things that fed a Djinn like him the best.
I glanced over at Leon. He was busy scanning the crowd but when he noticed me looking at him, he smiled warmly and took my hand. When he felt me start to tense up, he leaned in to whisper, “Relax. We’re supposed to be together, right? If this is a new relationship, we should still be in the honeymoon period. We should want to be touching one another.”
I smiled and my fingers tightened around his, and he grinned pleasantly. I laughed. This was all so crazy. I was doing this tonight to rid myself of one man’s attention, and yet here I was, getting all cosy with another guy that I didn’t even know.
“A drink?”
“Sure, why not?” I could honestly do with a drink right now. We walked over to the nearest bar. I was glad that we seemed to be planning to stick to the ground floor. It made for an easier getaway.
We stood at the bar and I sipped at the Pepsi that he’d bought for me. I could have done with something a little stronger, but I understood the need for a clear head tonight. I didn’t even flinch when he put his arm around me and pulled me close to his side. I even played up to it. Whenever I leaned in to speak to him, I made sure that my hand lingered on his arm or his chest. It was weird, but in a way, I was enjoying myself. In fact, I was having a bit of fun with this.
“There he is.”
I froze. I couldn’t help it. I’d been having so much fun chatting and laughing with Leon that I had almost forgotten why we were here. Almost.
“Where?” My voice was a little shaky as I shouted over the loud music.
“Up on the second floor.” He tightened his grasp on my waist. “No. Don’t move away. Stay like this.”
I hadn’t realised that I tried pulling away from him. The thought of Milligan being so close unnerved me. I didn’t want to look around, but I needed to. I fisted the back of Leon’s shirt in my hand and glanced up. I watched as Milligan looked around the club, scanning the crowd before his eyes settled on me. For a moment, longing and lust flashed in his eyes. That was until he spotted Leon’s hand around my waist, playing with the hem of my shirt so his fingers brushed at the bare skin underneath. Anger seemed to radiate off of him in waves.
Leon must have noticed it too, as he gently brushed the hair back from my face and leaned in to intimately whisper in my ear. “I think that it might be time to get out of here. What do you think?”
I tried to pull my eyes from Milligan’s. It wasn’t easy. I didn’t have the power to resist him when he was so close to me. I wanted to reach up and touch the talisman, but I didn’t want him to know that I had something like that. I wasn’t sure what I was feeling. Sure, the lust still lingered there in the background, but it was more of a physical call. I couldn’t explain it. It was like the call to him was dulled, but it was still strong enough to hold me.
“Carrie?” Leon leaned in to kiss me on the cheek. He was outwardly casual and seemingly attentive to me, but I could hear the wary tone in his voice. I unwrapped my hand from the back of his shirt and dug my nails into the palms of my hands. The pain helped me to let go of Milligan’s hold on me. I felt a shiver run through me, like someone had walked over my grave.
“Let’s go. Right now.” I tried to keep the urgency out of my voice, but failed. Not that it affected Leon in the slightest. He was more than ready to get out of here. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted that Milligan was moving towards the stairs. “We’ve got to move, now.”
Leon grabbed hold of my hand tightly and dragged me off towards the exit. I was kind of worried as we pushed through the crowds of people that the doormen may try to stop us from leaving, but they simply waved us through.
Once we were back out in the cool night air, Leon pulled me into a run towards the cars. Marissa and Harper had been standing outside the cars, waiting for us to return. As soon as they saw us running, they jumped into their cars and revved their engines. Leon and I dived straight into the back of Harper’s car and we sped off. I glanced out of the rear view mirror, half expecting to see Milligan chasing after us Terminator 2 style, but he was nowhere in sight.
“So, what now?” I asked breathlessly. I really needed to start working out more. I wasn’t used to all of this kind of activity.
“Now we go to Et incarnatus est de terra.”
“What is that?”
“It is one of the most sacred places that I could find around here. It’s a place where we can draw more power.”
We all fell quiet again as the cars raced to a place that I’d never heard of.
Chapter Twenty
The cars stopped in front of an old family bakery. I knew this place. They made the best doughnuts in town. What the hell were we doing here?
Harper got out of the car and we followed suit. I looked around. It was very quiet. But, there weren’t that many bars or clubs in this part of town so there wasn’t a lot of pedestrian traffic to be had around here.
“What are we doing here?” I asked, looking around puzzled.
“This is the place.”
I didn’t bother to ask him anything else. Things weren’t going to make any sense to me, no matter how much I asked. I followed the three of them around the back of the building and watched as Harper broke in the back door. My jaw could have hit the floor, I was that shocked. I had never seen him do anything remotely illegal ever before. “What are you doing?” I hissed at him, looking around and half expecting the police to come crashing around the corner to arrest us all.
“How else did you expect us to be able to get in here?”
I didn’t know. But, I hadn’t been expecting him to do that.
The sweet smell of pastries wafted out through the now open doorway. I loved this place. I used to often go out of my way to swing by here on my way home from work, they were that good. But, I never in a million years expected to ever be breaking in here in the middle of the night.
Harper and Marissa paced through the back of the store, using flash lights to lead the way. I felt bad about it, but I couldn’t help grabbing one of the doughnuts as we passed through the open door to the store. Hell, we had already unlawfully broken in here, so taking one little doughnut wasn’t really going to make matters worse. Just to ease my conscience, I left a handful of change on the side. Silly, I know.
“This way.” Marissa said. She led us around to the back of the store and broke another lock on another door. I groaned. This was just getting worse by the minute. The basement. I hated basements. They were creepy and smelly.
Harper must have noticed my reluctance as he paused to take my hand. “We have to go down there. We need to be as close to the earth as we can. It will help to magnify our power.”
I nodded and slowly walked forward, but I didn’t like it. I scanned the walls and floors to make sure that no spiders jumped out at me. I knew that it was a stupid thing to be worried about in comparison to everything else that we were facing, but I hated spiders. What was that saying? ‘There is nothing to fear but fear itself. And spiders. Fuck spiders.’ This place was giving me the chills. Leon walked down the steep, dank stairs. I still had the doughnut in my hands but I was no longer at all hungry.
Marissa was already knelt on the dusty floor. I didn’t realised that this place was going to be as big as it was. It was cavernous. The lights that we were carrying barely touched the far walls, creating more shadows than I was comfortable with.
Harper bent down and got straight to work. Leon and I stood off to one side so we didn’t get in t
he way. There was nothing that either of us could do to help. I was mesmerised by what Harper and Marissa were doing. They moved almost in a dance. Each of them knew what the other was doing and they didn’t get in each other’s way, moving gracefully. I didn’t have a clue, but it seemed quite witchy to me.
Marissa suddenly bent double and fell to the floor. I rushed forward to help her, but Harper quickly moved and motioned for me to stay where I was.
“Milligan’s here.” She gasped.
She didn’t need to say that. I knew. I could feel him. He had come here quicker than I had expected him to. I walked backwards slowly to stand next to Leon again. He was a comforting presence at my side. I didn’t know what was going to happen next, but I looked over at Harper and whispered, “Are we ready?”
He nodded firmly and surely. He didn’t look scared. He looked ready to fight. Ready to fight for me. I glanced briefly at Marissa. She was slowly pushing herself back on to her knees. She looked weak, but determined.
I swung my eyes back at to the direction of the door at the top of the stairs down to the basement. I couldn’t see it too well. Not in this poor light. The light came only from the flash lights and a few candles, and the light didn’t really reach that far. Even though I was trying to watch it intently, I still jumped out of my skin when the door slammed open, banging on the wall behind. He knew that we were down here waiting for him. He wasn’t going to come down here tentatively. Milligan was ready to make a show out of this.
I could vaguely see his form as he began to descend the stairs, hips swinging arrogantly.
As he reached the bottom and walked into the feint light, I saw him. Really saw him. He paid no attention to the others down here. His eyes were firmly on me. I dug my finger nails into the palm of my hand, but it was so hard to resist his pull. I could do it. I had to do it. I knew I could get through this. But, did I really want to? That was the million dollar question. As his eyes bore into mine, I could almost feel the memory of his touch. My skin tingled. I remembered everything we had ever done. The shower. I remembered.
Milligan grinned at me. He knew exactly what I was feeling and what I was thinking. I hated that knowing look on his face. I dug my nails in harder, wanting to flinch at the pain, but I didn’t stop. The pain was taking over the sensation of Milligan’s touch. I stood straighter and glared over at him. I could still feel that pull, but it wasn’t all consuming now. Anger flared on his face.
“You think that you can fight this? You can’t, Carrie. You don’t even want to. Come to me, Carrie. You want to feel me. You want me to run my tongue over your body. You want me to take your body to places you’ve never been before.” He started to stalk a little closer. I backed up until I bumped into the wall. “Come to me, Carrie. You know that you want me. This is what you are feeling right now. And, this is nothing to do with me. It’s all you. You want me. You’re only fighting yourself. It’s pointless. Come to me, Carrie.”
What if that was true? What if he wasn’t controlling me? I didn’t have time to think about it before he continued with his tangle of words.
“You want me. Come to me, Carrie. You want this so badly that you can feel your knees buckling. All you want right now is to fall to the floor and have me take you right here, right now. You don’t even care that your friends are here. You wouldn’t even care if they watched. You want me, Carrie. You want me to fuck you so badly, it hurts. Come to me, Carrie.”
I really could feel my legs starting to buckle under me. I hated him so much that I could cry. I hated that he could have been speaking the truth. The whole truth and nothing but the truth. I hated him, but I hated myself more. I grasped my arms and sunk my nails into the fragile flesh. I had to do something. I could not succumb to him.
Blood began to well in small crescent shaped cuts on my arms. Pain burned through me, overrunning and pushing out the feelings that Milligan was forcing on to me. I could do this. I had to do this. I lowered my eyes from him, breaking his hold on me. His eyes were a big part of his seduction. It didn’t break all of it, but it was a start at least.
Milligan laughed. “You think that it is as simple as that?”
I looked up sharply at him. I hadn’t meant to, but when I looked into his eyes, it wasn’t the same kind of pull that I felt. All I could focus on now was that his eyes burned a luminous aqua blue. It was frightening. It was magnificent. I knew the moment that I saw them that he was showing me his true self. It wasn’t like it had been with Harper. I knew him and I trusted him not to hurt me. Milligan, I didn’t trust him in the least.
“Keep on trying to fight it, Carrie. I find it quite amusing.”
I didn’t stop. Even when the blood started to trickle down my palms, I didn’t stop.
Milligan carried on looking at me for a moment. He didn’t care. He had his eyes set only on me, and he would do what he needed to get me.
“You took your time, didn’t you, Harper?” Even his voice sounded amused. He really didn’t care. He might even have had an idea of what we were planning to do, but he still didn’t care. He wasn’t frightened of us in the least.
I took a deep breath and started to move over towards Harper. I still didn’t know what the plan was, but I guessed that it had something to do with all the crap that littered the floor. Marissa was still on her knees but she was still looking determined to carry this through.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Milligan sneered and a blazing fire of blue flames rose around me in a perfect circle.
Fire.
I tried to back away but there was nowhere for me to go. I was trapped by the flames. I looked over at Harper with panic in my eyes, but the flames suddenly rose higher to block him from my view.
This was my worst nightmare coming true.
I felt the scream starting to rise in my throat.
Fire. That was the one thing that could tip me over the edge. I hated to think how Milligan knew this about me. I could feel my breathing starting to race and I was so scared that I was going to faint and fall face first into those roaring flames.
It didn’t look like a real fire. The flames were blue. But, that didn’t really register in my brain. Fire was fire was fire.
It was fire that had brought Harper into my life.
My father had apparently had some enemies and some piece of shit petrol bombed our house when I was only five years old. I was the only one to get out of there alive. I may have only been a small child, but I could still vividly remember having to stand there and do nothing, only watch as my mother, my father and my big sister were all burned alive. I can still hear their screams in my darkest nightmares.
I could hear them screaming now.
“Carrie, come to me. Come to me and all of this will stop.” I heard Milligan’s voice through the deafening roar of the fire. It pierced through my mind, bringing me out of my memories and into the terror of the here and now. Somewhere in my mind, I knew that this was all simply a trick. I didn’t think that this fire could actually harm me. I wasn’t going to test the theory, though.
It was a trick. It was a trick. That was all I kept saying to myself over and over again. It was all I could think. I had a war going on in my mind. Fire. Fighting Milligan. Fighting my feelings for him. Fire. Fighting my fear.
I wanted to go to him. I wanted that more than anything else in this world. I knew that if I did, this nightmare would end. But, I knew that my other nightmare would continue. Going to Milligan would give him the power to possibly defeat what Harper and Marissa were planning.
“Believe in yourself.” Harper’s voice called out to me over the dull roar of the fire. I knew exactly what he meant by that. Believe that this wasn’t real. Believe that he couldn’t hurt me. Believe that I wouldn’t die a slow and painful death like my family had. I had to believe that I had the strength inside me to fight him off.
I closed my eyes. It was better when I couldn’t see it. I still could hear it, but there was no warmth from the flames. I knew that th
is was purely Milligan’s doing. I had to hold on and believe that we could get through this.
“Hold on.” Marissa’s echoed through my thoughts.
“Come to me, Carrie.” Milligan crooned.
“Fuck off!” I screamed, unable to hold on to the anger that was building within me any longer. I heard Milligan laugh. He was enjoying my mental pain. I tried to blot it all out. I wanted to run and hide.
Suddenly, I heard Milligan roar in anger. I didn’t open my eyes. There was no point. I couldn’t see anything through the fire anyway, so what was the point. I would only be staring into that tormenting fire. I didn’t know what was happening, but I could hear Marissa speaking in a sure but melodic voice.
“What are you doing?” Milligan’s voice seemed to bounce off of the walls. Marissa carried on chanting. That was the only way I could describe what I was hearing. I don’t’ even know how I knew, but I knew that this was phase one. The Individualisation Spell.
“You can’t do this! How are you doing this?” Milligan sounded enraged. Marissa didn’t stop.
“You’re on your own now.” Harper said. I heard a sneer in his voice that I’d never heard before. I knew what that meant. It meant that they had cut Milligan off from his clan. No one would know what happened next to him.
Marissa’s tone of voice changed slightly, becoming more important and urgent. All I could think was that she had now progressed to the binding spell and the exorcism. I could feel myself starting to shake. I had never been caught up in something like this before and now I was smack bang in the middle of it all. If the cries and screams that I was hearing coming from Milligan were anything to go by, then this part of the plan wasn’t without its pain. All I could feel was numbness. Nothingness. I was stuck in the middle of this circle of fire. There was nothing I could do to help. All I could do was think about the fire that surrounded me. The situation outside of the circle was out of my hands.
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