Taking Back Sunday

by Cristy Rey

  “You mentioned that the other witch, Michelle, had it, right?” Cyrus asked. “Is she involved in this?”

  The last thing Cyrus wanted to hear was that they’d have to further split their limited resources between the werewolves who had already complained of the exhaustive, multi-faceted, and slow-moving investigation. Adding Michelle into the mix meant longer hours and splitting apart more, leaving less coverage on the vampires’ nest.

  “I’m positive Michelle’s not involved,” Sunday stated matter-of-factly. “First, she’s a weak witch so she really has no business getting involved with demon-casting. Second–”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Cyrus jumped out of his seat. “Demon-casting?! Who the hell said anything about demon-casting?”

  Realizing she hadn’t told Cyrus about the demon spirit that she had conjured via Hell’s version of a video-chat, Sunday bit her cheek and raised her eyebrows to make her eyes large with apology.

  “I might have forgotten to mention that, at the warehouse, I kind of tapped into a phone line Constance had been using and picked up a demon at the other end.”

  “A demon, Sunday?! Are you fucking kidding me?!”

  Cyrus was outraged, storming around the room. When he punched the wall, it left a dent. The fact that he hadn’t sent his fist clear through the wall was a sure sign that he was holding back his strength. Probably, Sunday guessed, so that he could use it to yell at her some more.

  “It might not have been a demon, demon,” she explained, her voice hitting the high-pitch of a woman who was coming to strongly regret having said anything in the first place. “It might have just been some angry ghost or something.”

  “’Some angry ghost or something’?!” Cyrus growled. “How did you do it? How did you talk to this demon or angry ghost or something? What else do you know that you’re not telling me while my brothers are out there stalking your witch friend and her bloodsucker friends, huh? What else can you possibly be holding back?”

  Sunday recounted her experience at the warehouse in the time after he had packed up the truck and sat out front waiting for her. Cyrus was particularly interested in how Sunday had managed to open the lines of communication with a creature from Hell without casting a spell, and in deciphering what the demon had last said to her. You have nothing and I will live again. He interrogated Sunday about her process and picked apart every possible meaning of the demon’s final statements.

  As much as she could verbalize, she shared with Cyrus how she worked. The problem was that there was so much of what she did that relied on nothing but his blind faith to believe in her ability. Upon his insistence, Sunday explained to him the difference between being in control of her abilities and being overwhelmed by them.

  “Most of the time, like right now, I’ve got a pretty good hold up on my guards. It took a lot of effort and training, but Bernadette taught me how to get to a point where I could live a semi-normal existence. Only much more potent, pointed extraneous energy registers when I’m in control. The guards though, they don’t always hold up. I’ve gotten to where my natural state is to be guarded, but if I lose myself or I’m confronted with much stronger power than usual, then every metaphysical, or ‘psychic,’ force comes charging at me all at once.

  “For instance,” Sunday explained, “the night that we were at my house, I had been really good, really good, Cyrus. You don’t even know how good I’d been up until that point when–”

  “When you ‘overheated’?” Cyrus cut in with a shit-eating grin.

  Blushing, Sunday paused and shook off the thought of that hot night of genuine steamy passion.

  “Right,” she said. “I’m usually able to handle those situations pretty well. You have to believe me. The thing is, with you, you brought something to the table that no one else really had before. You had all this pent up aggression for me. At first, I thought it had been that you were just really into it, you know, in the moment, but now… I know better now.”

  Sunday thought back to the things that he’d shared when he’d opened his mind to her, his soul. She’d set it all aside knowing that, right now, Cyrus had no intention to hurt her. Because he was unequivocally on her side, she could ignore the yet unaired history between them and focus on the task at hand: the warlock, the vampires, and the demon.

  “This time, just now, this was different. Why?” Cyrus asked.

  “This time,” Sunday continued, “I was the one in control. It wasn’t about being with you as much as it was being focused on getting into your head.”

  What she said would hurt his feelings given the strong emotions he carried for her, and Sunday dropped her head to avoid Cyrus’ eyes. Even when Cyrus had shown up at her house fully aware that she was the Incarnate, he hadn’t been trying to deceive her. He had been sincere with his desire to get to know her, as sincere as he could be. Not just to bed her, but actually get to know her. The difference between the last time they were together, and this most recent time, had been Sunday’s intention. She was in control because she wanted to access his mind without him fighting it. She needed to know, after all, who it was she was trusting with her very important mission and who it was she was going to have to rebel against when the problem with the warlock was finally resolved.

  “I deserved it,” Cyrus declared, believing with every fiber of his being that it was true. He had deceived her first and foremost, and he had proven himself to be a threat to her safety and well-being. She knew, now, that she’d been hunted and she knew, too, of the burden he’d carried through the years.

  “No one deserves it.” Sunday hated knowing she’d done something that, had it been done to her, would have ripped the heart out of her chest and stomped on it. “People deserve to be made love to because they’re wanted, Cyrus. You’re no different than that.”

  What she really wanted to say, Sunday held back though just barely: she wanted Cyrus, wanted to know uninhibited passion with him. She wanted to know what it would be like to make love to her soul mate because she was sure that he was it for her, just as she’d seen, in his mind, that she was his mate. Even though he scared her now more than ever, Sunday believed that Cyrus was the real deal. With him, she knew she could come clean, be open, and be truly happy.

  Of course, that didn’t mean she trusted him. With everything that she now knew, she was evermore sure that she couldn’t. No matter how honest he was being with her now, Cyrus couldn’t wipe the slate clean. Talking about it would make no difference. Facts were facts. She had always been and would always be his prey. What she felt and what she could feel needed to be brushed aside so that she could confront the present.

  Veering from the detour their conversation had taken, Cyrus redirected her to talk more about her experience with the demon.

  “I can’t tell you much else,” she replied. “He was what you think something from Hell would be. He was proud, and sure that Constance would manage to raise him. God knows, I probably aided in their cause. I didn’t mean to, I swear, I wouldn’t have if I’d known.”

  “I know, Sunday. But I need you to think back on what you saw. You said you could feel Constance spell casting on the charm, and you said that you know she’s used human blood in her sorcery. I need you to be really thorough about this, Sunday. We need to know why it hasn’t worked. We need to know if she’s doing it for someone else, like the vamps, or if she’s doing this for herself. We need to know how the murder at the magic shop fits into this. Anything you can say will help us.”

  Sunday considered all the possibilities. The reasons that a warlock would try to call upon a demon or damned soul, or try to raise one could be millions. Maybe she needed something specific that she couldn’t obtain on her own, and she’d run out of other options. Maybe she was a devotee of a certain spirit and the reach into Hell had been a commandment she was following from a greater power. Maybe she was under contract by another agency, like the network of vampires, who were paying her for her services in exchange for something she desperately w
anted. How the witch she’d murdered at Bearers of Mystical Fruit played any role in Constance’s plot was just as lost on her as it was on Cyrus and the werewolves.

  “There are too many reasons she could be doing this,” Sunday responded. She was deadlocked in providing any answers to the questions of Constance’s motives; however, she could think of a few possibilities as to why Constance’s sorcery hadn’t worked. “Without knowing what spells she’s using it’s tough to say why it’s not really working, but I can tell you that pulling someone out of a realm beyond this natural life, call it Heaven or Hell or Purgatory or another dimension, is extremely difficult.

  There was a coven in Texas that Bernadette and I traveled to. It was Bernadette’s idea that we needed to put an end to their trying to raise a demon. They were fixed on this idea that this demon they worshipped could be pulled into a human body and sit at the head of their table. That coven got really close, like, really close. The problem is that, with spells like this, a lot of people suffer. It’s not just a murder here and there and some animal sacrifices. It’s illnesses that affect a whole town and surges in magical aura that draw other creatures out. The reason for that is all the power that someone needs to derive in order to do it successfully.”

  “Does Constance have that kind of mojo?”

  “Those witches were a whole coven, Cyrus, and Constance is working on her own on this. She can’t have enough power to generate the kind of spells she’s been attempting. That’s probably why she’s gone to the coven. Two of the witches there are for-real-witches. Elisabeth and Eunice… Oh my God… Cyrus… We have to find Eunice.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  “Marcus says he’s searched the entire house, Sunday, and the witch isn’t there,” Cyrus told her as soon as he had ended the call. They were racing to Eunice’s house from the motel miles away. Marcus, who had been waiting for the couple of vamps to rise outside of their house, was closer to the location and got the call to intervene.

  “She has to be there, Cyrus!”

  “If she’s not we’ll find her,” Cyrus assured her, “Constance can’t have taken her very far.”

  “Where would she take her? I destroyed the warehouse. Does the other werewolf say that Constance is home?”

  “Angel says there hasn’t been any movement, and her car is still parked outside,” Cyrus said. “I’ve asked him to check the house to make sure she hasn’t snuck out some other way.” He placed a hand on Sunday’s knee even as he weaved in and out of the Thursday night traffic at much faster speeds than the other cars. “We’ll find her,” he promised. “We can do this. We have leads.”

  Sunday was furious at herself for having failed to consider that Eunice might have been in danger any sooner. She should have known better. Eunice had the aura of a powerful caretaker witch. If Constance was even nearly as powerful as she purported to be, then she would have sensed it instantly. The curious drive-by of Eunice’s house and the fact that Eunice had called out sick from the sabbat should have tipped her off. Constance had no reason to drive by Eunice’s house clandestinely unless she’d been casing the house.

  “You had someone following her this whole time, didn’t you?” Sunday asked.

  “Yes, Angel. Angel’s been on Constance since we noticed you following her.”

  “And did he ever notice Constance taking a particular interest in Eunice?”

  She was convinced, now, that Constance was planning to take out Eunice. She couldn’t be sure how, but there had to have been some sign of it sooner. Constance was sure to have made preparations. Perhaps while she’d been following the lead on Michelle’s necklace charm, Constance had set up some trap. The part of her that feared for her own safety wouldn’t have flinched at the opportunity for the werewolves’ help sooner if she had suspected that Eunice was in danger. She couldn’t possibly have covered so much ground on her own. In the face of the threat that the hunters were to Sunday, she was learning to be grateful that they had come along. They had discovered that Constance was working with vampires. They had found her warehouse, and without them, Sunday would never have been able to figure out that Constance was a warlock in time to stop her.

  “There was a house that Angel mentioned Constance visited once,” Cyrus recalled. He had nearly forgotten about the incident that Angel had recounted to him. “I can’t believe I didn’t remember it,” he slammed a fist onto the dashboard. “She moved around a lot, Sunday. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

  “What, Cyrus? Tell me about it now.”

  There was no time for excuses or apologies. Eunice was AWOL, and given Constance’s history with witches she’d encountered outside of the circle, the danger was likely of the mortal variety.

  “Hex bags.”

  “Hex bags?!” Sunday cried.

  Sunday’s hands flew into the air in exasperation. Hex bags were a fixture of black magic. These small bags, usually no bigger than a tennis ball, were filled with ingredients of a spell like herbs, amulets, and bones. When placed near the target of a curse, they could anchor and amplify a spell. If Constance was using hex bags on Eunice, she could have brought any number of curses upon her. The fact remained that Constance needed too much energy that she didn’t already have to pull off her great casting. She wouldn’t have been able to waste it on conjuring debilitating spells, even the more minor ones. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that Constance would have been slash-happy as she’d been when slaying the witch at the trinkets shop if murder was her only objective. Hex bags meant that Eunice was a part of the plan, and Eunice’s innate and considerable magical potential meant that it was likely the reason for Constance’s interest in her.

  The younger werewolf who bore a strong resemblance to Cyrus was standing in Eunice’s living room when Sunday burst in hurriedly screaming Eunice’s name. Sunday ordered the men to search the perimeter of the house, inside and out, for any hex bags. Immediately, both men flew out of the house to start their searches.

  Sunday had never been in Eunice’s home, and she didn’t know where to start looking. She caught a glimpse of a basement door from the corner of her eye and dove toward it. Turning on a light switch on the wall beside the door, she ran down the stairs screaming Eunice’s name. Shelves of canned food and storage boxes took up most of the space. There was a washer and dryer along another wall of the basement. Sunday tore around beside them looking for any place that Eunice could hide.

  Finding nothing, Sunday ran back up the stairs and found the hallway leading to the bedrooms. One bedroom was fashioned into a den, and though it looked like it had been used regularly and recently, nothing about it appeared ransacked. Sunday dashed to another room and found it similarly untouched. She burst into the closets and checked under the bed. The idea that Eunice was injured or worse drove Sunday to near madness as she ran out of the room and through the furthest doorway down the hall.

  It had to be Eunice’s bedroom, and it was in shambles. A dresser that looked custom made and aged into antiquity was missing drawers that lay splintered beneath the window. The bed linens had been pulled off in haste and pillows were strewn around the room. A struggle had toppled everything that had been on Eunice’s bedside table. Eunice was in this room when Constance had come for her. Given Constance’s diminutive size, Sunday reasoned that she couldn’t have been alone to abduct Eunice. She was surely bigger than Constance was by at least a few inches and not nearly as petite. Eunice was certainly the kind of woman who would have been able to put up a fight to keep herself from being taken from her home. The only way Eunice could have been taken alive was if she’d been cursed and if Constance had help to carry her out of the house. Perhaps the vampires had aided Constance in the abduction. The sun had set over an hour ago. Had that been enough time for a vampire to get in gear and help Constance to kidnap Eunice?

  Cyrus ran into the room when he heard Sunday screaming. Following her cries, he found her kneeling on the bedroom floor grabbing at fallen articles of clothing and hugging them.
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  “They took her!” she wailed. “We have to find her, Cyrus! She’s weak from one of Constance’s curses and she’s probably terrified! She couldn’t have known Constance could do this!”

  Marcus came in after Cyrus, took up his phone, and dialed out to the other wolves. Between them, they’d found three hex bags. She knew that, at this point, it didn’t matter what she’d find inside. There was no doubt that Constance had cursed Eunice either to make her weak with illness or to immobilize her, and figuring out which curse had been used was nothing but a waste of time, especially if they couldn’t find her. But Sunday was frantic.

  She ripped open one of the hex bags and small animal bones and dried herbs fell onto the carpet. The same thing happened when she tore open the other two. Sunday poured out the bags’ contents on the floor and banged her fists into them. There was nothing she could do. Whatever the curse had been cast to do would have already worked. She was effecting little more than further disturbing Eunice’s home. Sunday took up the clothes that she had been holding before and hugged them into her chest again, crying over the suffering that Eunice was enduring and would endure further because the great and terrible Incarnate hadn’t figured it out sooner.

  Over the phone, Angel informed Cyrus that he had gone into the warlock’s home and found it empty. He’d gone through all the rooms and scoured any possible place Constance could have been hiding. She was nowhere to be found and he hadn’t even been tipped off to her leaving.

  “You were supposed to be outside the whole time!”

  “I was,” Angel stammered, shocked at his own inability to explain how Constance had gone missing. “She spent the whole day at home. I didn’t see her leave once. I thought it was weird, but… who knows?! Her car is still outside, and all the doors were closed. I can’t explain it, brother.”