by Scott Tracey
¤ ¤ ¤
It was a surreal feeling to get into a car with Lucien. It only got worse when I started interrogating him.
“Why all of this? Why try convincing John to let me come? Why keep my father a secret?”
Lucien’s driving was smooth and controlled, just like the rest of him. “You still don’t understand. I never tried to convince your uncle. I told him you were coming. There was never any doubt. But he seemed to think otherwise.”
“I never had a choice?”
Lucien shrugged. “There were possibilities. Minor probabilities that became moot after your episode at the convenience store.”
“So there were other paths.” How many mistakes had I made since coming here? Maybe I’d cut off a whole path where things had never gotten this bad.
Lucien looked over at me, his eyes shrewd. “No. All roads lead to Belle Dam. You could have lived a thousand different lives, and all of them would have brought you here in the end. You are bound to this city.”
I didn’t want to believe him, but I did. Lucien saw the future, and the knowledge was enough for him to forget his tendencies as a liar.
“Sometimes you surprise yourself,” Lucien continued, “with the things you learn to do. Your witch eyes are a powerful gift. But they were given with strings, as the best ones always are. Grace used hers to build this town, and tucked secrets away in every building and sapling. And now her successor has arrived.”
“And how did Grace get involved in all of this? What’s the story there?”
Lucien’s voice lacked any of the heat I would have come to expect. It had to be a sore subject, but he was as nonchalant as ever. “Grace took something that didn’t belong to her and hid it away beneath the town.”
“Why?”
Lucien shrugged. “Why do the Lansings do anything? Because they can. But alas, Grace vanished, and her hidden magics vanished with her.”
“Because of the witch eyes?”
“Of course. You’ve only scratched the surface on what they can do, my boy.”
“So Grace found a way to separate you from your power. She locked it away, and you were stuck … what? Human?”
Lucien snorted. “I am a prisoner of war. This world brims with weakness and death. Where I come from, death hums like a lullaby.”
And he’d been waiting to go back. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
Lucien laughed. “Of course. But what other options do you have? This way, we both get what we want.”
I thought about that on the rest of the ride. Demons couldn’t remain in this world, so maybe giving Lucien what he wanted wasn’t the wrong choice. Instinct told me it was, but that was just because the idea of being free from the visions was … indescribable. But helping a demon … that was always the wrong choice. Wasn’t it?
We pulled up in front of Lucien’s office building, and he got out while I sat in the car. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. Somewhere, out of the corner of my eye, I could sense a stirring of color that seemed familiar. I refused to look, to subject myself to the visions. Right now was not the time.
“Come along then. Only one item left on the agenda.”
I got out of the car and followed him inside.
It wasn’t until we were in the elevator gliding up the floors that Lucien turned back to me. “This has always been your destiny, Braden. Grace was foolish—unraveling dark powers, and learning things a woman wasn’t meant to know. But you—you can be this town’s salvation.”
The office was dark and empty when we walked out of the elevator. Lucien flipped a bank of switches along one side of the wall, throwing light back into the room.
I was like a puppet without strings, blindly going along with Lucien simply because he’d dangled a carrot. I couldn’t stop myself; the idea of seeing without the pain was something I couldn’t fight.
I followed him into his office, looking out at the city at rest beneath me.
“Who would have thought a week ago you would be here now,” he said in a pleasant tone. He’d played his part well, and I’d done everything he’d expected of me.
“I never should have come. I thought … ”
His eyes glittered. “You thought someone was coming for you. Just like you later thought that Catherine was responsible.”
“But it’s been you all along.”
He leaned against the desk, exuding serenity like it came with his three-piece suit. “I don’t believe in waiting for the future to happen. I believe in taking charge. I taught Grace to master her powers. I can certainly trick a seventeen-year-old into believing that what he saw was the real thing.”
That was why the vision was so strange. I hadn’t seen a vision of the future after all. Only what Lucien wanted me to see, just enough to force me here. “But why?”
“Because I knew your curiosity would consume you. You’d look for answers from the one man that could not answer any of them. Jonathan had almost escaped with you, after your mother died. I couldn’t have you vanishing into the night.”
My brain was trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t process it. “What did you do?”
“I promised to clean up the mess he left. All he had to do was swear a few oaths, spill a little blood, and never warn you about where you come from, and what I’m capable of.”
“What mess?”
Lucien was loving every second of this. Revealing all the elements he’d put into play just to get me here. “After your mother’s death, your father was inconsolable. And for the first time in his pathetic little life, his younger brother thought to step up and be a man. He tried to balance the scales. A spouse for a spouse.” His smile twisted, becoming something mocking and cruel. “Catherine’s husband lived, of course. Your uncle was always a screwup.”
“You shut the hell up,” I seethed, flashes of red streaking into my vision. John had been my only family all my life. I could accept Lucien using me. But insulting my uncle was crossing the line.
“He let you walk into a nest of vipers. Abandoned you, the same way your father did. And you stand up for him? The man cared more about his life than your own.”
I knew he was toying with me, but I didn’t care. My body kept flashing hot, and a thousand different spells kept flickering into the haze. Spells to use against him. To shut him up. “He knew he had to let me go. You said that yourself.”
The demon in the three-piece suit snorted. “Because if he followed you, he’d be dead. Jonathan knows all about Catherine’s desire for revenge. And he’s just a wounded calf to her. He stayed away because it kept him alive.”
“Then I’m glad he stayed away.”
“And left your real father to shoulder the family burden all alone. Oh yes, the man is a humanitarian. At least Jason always understood the need for temporary setbacks.”
“And Jason’s bought into your ‘temporary setbacks’ all along? Losing his wife and son, and waiting it out? Did you promise him I’d come back and destroy Catherine once and for all?” I walked toward the window, hugging my arms close to my chest.
“Jason believes what I tell him to. He’s your father, isn’t he? The lies you’ve told your new friends. The hardest of all your new secrets that you’ve had to bear. Jason Thorpe’s dead son, alive and well. And ingratiating himself into the next generation of Lansings. What father could be prouder?”
There was a strange tone to Lucien’s voice. A savage clarity. I turned away, only to see Lucien watching me from the desk. And Trey, standing in the doorway.
“Gentry, excellent timing. Braden and I are just finishing up.” But Lucien didn’t look toward him; he was still staring at me.
“It’s not true,” Trey whispered, looking to me for confirmation.
This was what Lucien had been after. The “last item on th
e agenda.”
“Why?” I could feel the tears starting to form, and I blinked rapidly, as though it would banish them.
“Everyone loves a sacrifice; at least they do where I come from. You may have squandered the annihilation I wanted … ” Now, finally, his eyes moved and he looked to Trey. “But a good agenda always has a contingency plan.”
Trey was still standing there in shock. But I could see the way his mind was working furiously, putting together pieces of the puzzle. My arrival, and Jason’s return not long after. The fear of Catherine, and the way I’d reacted when I found out he was her son.
“Trey, it’s not what you think … ” But it was.
He straightened in front of me, all that Lansing ego steeling his spine. “You don’t look a thing like him.” His hands gripped into fists, every muscle in his face clenched up. “This is just some trick … you’re being manipulated, Braden.”
“No I’m not.” I didn’t want to tell him, but it was already out there. There wasn’t any taking it back, or hiding it now.
“You don’t look like him!”
“But he does look remarkably like his mother, doesn’t he?” Lucien stepped aside, standing directly beneath the painting I’d noticed the first time I came in here. A dark shape hovering over a young woman. A shape with features I could see now. A man, with the same dark hair and upturned nose as Lucien.
“They’re manipulating you. That’s all this is, some giant plot to get back at my mother.” Trey was heaving now, his breath coming in furious bursts of energy. “Because of what you can do.”
“Not everything’s about your mother!” I screamed, reminded again of all the reasons we would never work out. His blind faith, his arrogance, my lies … and our families.
“Boys, boys. Keep it civil. You’re not Romeo and Juliet, and this isn’t the stage. Don’t get any ide—” In the middle of speaking, Lucien whipped his hand out suddenly. His eyes zoomed onto Trey.
Trey had been reaching behind him with one hand. I didn’t have to see it to know what he was reaching for. A weapon.
Everything started happening all at once. The atmosphere in the room intensified as the lights flickered, then dimmed. Trey jerked upright in the middle of his movement, flying backwards against the wall next to the door.
I ripped off the glasses an instant later, but there was nothing for me to see. Only a hint of shadows where I expected to see magic. The room was empty of visions, of memories to cling to. It was a blank canvas, but brushed with a tainted feeling.
Trey struggled on the wall where a force pinned him several feet above the ground. A trail of shadows, darker than the rest, ran between him and Lucien like a cable line.
There was something in the lawyer’s eyes, a swirl that hadn’t been there before. At first I thought I was imagining it, but the closer I looked at him, the darker the fog in his eyes grew. It flowed through the iris, a cloud that smoked through everything until there was nothing left but solid obsidian.
“Wh-what are you?” Trey choked out.
This was it. The darkness and shadows I’d seen before. The demon hidden inside the body of a man. The traces of darkness that had been watching me since I came to town. The shadowy eye revealed by my spell.
Hidden inside, but where I couldn’t see. Only coming out when Lucien tapped into his powers. He’d been spying on me since I came to town, stalking me.
Now that there was something to grab onto, my mind did what it was best at. It soaked up everything it could.
Naked pain and fear no light even the moon grows dark please stop I don’t want this anymore what is that boy doing now with empty hollows where there should have been fire that burns inside I’m never going to do anything worthwhile with this concrete void like a whirlpool I can’t look away but god it hurts.
Lucien’s eyes continued to grow in front of me as I struggled against the snapshots, pictures, and voices that hurtled out from him. Hundreds of them, all sounding so terrified before the apathy set in. Soon the darkness swallowed his face, until all I could see was a pair of shadowy eyes across the breadth of my vision.
And then they swallowed me up, too.
Thirty-Two
“Of course it doesn’t hurt, my darling. You should know by now that I’d never want to hurt you.” My mouth opened to the words, but it wasn’t my voice that came out.
We were in Lucien’s office, but now it was daytime, and I was seated behind his desk. And seated in one of the client’s chairs was a young girl. Long dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she was dressed conservatively. She looked nervous.
Fear always makes them smell so much like roses. I reached out my hand, realizing it was Lucien’s hand I was looking at, and touched her cheek. This wasn’t me. It was Lucien. A memory?
“Soon it will all be over.” My own voice had never sounded so husky. Energy vibrated around her—an aura only Lucien could see. As he grazed her skin, the bright colors muted, replaced by the night sky drawn to his fingertips. Darkness and sparkling lights, only the sweetest stuff, collected where he touched. Faster and faster it gathered, stealing the color from her cheeks.
She would have touched the heart of a small boy, inspiring him to write a legacy of children’s books. The more I drew it out of her, the more lightheaded I felt. Contentment washed through my body, and I felt … satiated. Lucien’s thought, not mine.
Feeding. That’s what he was doing. Drawing out her potential, her destiny, and feeding on it like some kind of vampire. That’s why so many girls worked here. And why they never lasted long. He was using them as some sort of food source, taking all that potential, all that talk of destiny, and feasting on it. How?
I wanted to gag—to take this dark act and expel it out of me. To forget it had ever happened. But I wasn’t in control of this body; I was just a visitor. It happened fast, all that potential sucked dry. The girl slumped in the chair, looking winded and vacant.
An entire path of her life, a path full of goods and bads, sucked away, leaving only a gnawing emptiness. This is how demons exist, the mind around me explained. Sating the hunger, however they can. Stealing innocence, purity, and potential.
The image shifted and the office blurred away until I was seated outside on a garden bench. A house behind me stood three proud stories tall, a glimmer of something I recognized.
“You’ll never find it. I know your games well enough.” A woman was speaking, draped in layers of silk veils that did nothing to hide her features, but managed well enough to mask the truth that those eyes saw.
I glanced down, studying the cuticles on my—his—hands. Funny how the skin looks so shiny, like marble. I tested a nail against the palm, but felt nothing. The skin didn’t shift at all, as though it were iron and not flesh.
“You’ll forgive me someday.” My voice was pleasant, belying the rage that boiled inside. Arrogant witch! “All I did was adhere to the nature of our agreement. Harming you was the last thing I ever wished.”
“A different story you spin, now that you’ve lost your edge.” The woman chuckled, her form fading into mist at the edges. He hadn’t seen more than a projection of her in months. Hiding away, somewhere he couldn’t find. “How has humanity been treating you, Lucien? Trapped inside your cage of blood and bones. Never say I wasn’t the most attentive of students.”
She was staring at me so long, and so hard, I wondered if she could see me. The real me, trapped inside this vision out of Lucien’s mind.
Everything sped away again, and with force I pulled myself back. Back into the office, where Trey hung with Lucien staring him down.
The connection with Lucien was still there, linking me to him. Though the room was empty of the things I normally saw, there were threads spilling out everywhere. Each one vibrated a different color, humming and glowing with the need to be seen and b
e made real. Futures. And behind them, the dark swirl of energy I barely saw, thick like fog. Power that was magic’s other half, invisible to witches the way magic was invisible to normal men. Demonic power.
The threads were like the images and symbols I saw, but spread out over a hundred different stretches of yarn. And wherever I looked, they throbbed.
My eyes rested on one for a moment too long, and I could see inside. A path where Trey pulled out his gun and fired. Different threads, all nearby, said much the same. I flickered my gaze between them, and saw the bullet’s arc shifting just a fraction of an inch. Each a different possibility.
“As I was saying.” Lucien seemed oblivious to the trip I’d taken through his mind. Images flashed around me, but I tried to push them aside. “Neither of you is fit to accomplish his destiny. That leaves me little choice in the matter.”
The threads started to pulse all at once, shrieking their tales at me.
“Braden … help me.”
“Braden … help … ”
The timing is always different, fractions of a second in some cases, but he always calls out for me.
“Braden!” Trey’s voice, his real voice, drew me out of the threads and back into the room. Lucien was clenching his hands now, tightening them into a fist. Trey’s body was constricting, the shadows shrinking around him.
“Stop!” Even if I couldn’t see it, there was still a lot I could do. Coming to Belle Dam had shown me that.
Lucien didn’t even look my way. “The boy will betray you. Weaken you. This happens. Deal with it.” He spoke like the future was already written. Killing Trey meant nothing to him.
But I cared. I cared a lot.
“I told you to stop!” I looked around, but there was nothing to help me. No Jason. No John. And no Trey. I was alone.
Lucien’s hand closed tighter, and Trey writhed against the wall. “I don’t work for you. You don’t own my leash.”
“Put. Him. Down.” Visions and feelings and memory collided into me, swept up in a hurricane of power and trauma. Everything that Lucien kept hidden was slipping out, spilling his secrets into the room.