Overshadow

by Brea Essex

  “Until we stop his heart, the witch still holds power over him. This is the only way to permanently break the spell.”

  “All right. I’ll go find him.” I started to exit the shop. I paused in the doorway and turned back to her. “You’re positive this is the only way?”

  “Yes.”

  I walked slowly back to my car, wondering how I was going to find Logan. I didn’t think just showing up at his house would be a good idea. His parents would wonder why I was there. I really needed to catch him alone. That was practically impossible these days. Sera was always with him wherever he went. I was going to have to turn into the stalker he’d previously accused me to be, I decided. I’d park my car across the street from his house and wait until his parents left.

  Taking my phone out of my purse, I called Nuada. “I’m coming to get you at home. Be ready.” I hung up before she could respond and dialed Andrei. “Meet me at the park.”

  I headed home to get Nuada. She was waiting around the corner from the house by the school. “I didn’t want your family to see me in human form, waiting for you,” she said as she climbed into my car.

  “Totally understandable. That’s something we don’t have time to explain right now.”

  “What’s going on?”

  I drove down the street to the park. Andrei was already waiting. “I’ll tell you both in a second.” We both got out of the car. “How’d you get here so fast?” I asked Andrei.

  “I flew.” He looked from me to Nuada. “So, what’s happening?”

  “Ismene has the potion ready to break the spell.”

  “We’re sure it’s going to work?”

  “Yes. We need to go get Logan somehow.”

  “I still don’t trust her. I can come up with a solution if you give me a little longer,” Nuada said.

  “Sorry, Nuada. I don’t know how much more time we have. I’m ready to have him back.”

  “So, how are we going to get him?” she asked.

  Andrei answered for me. “By force, if necessary.”

  We all climbed into my car. My mind raced as we drove out to his house in Rio Del Mar. What if it didn’t work? What if the spell wasn’t broken? Or, what if it worked too well and killed him permanently? I didn’t like this, at all, but it seemed to be the best solution. The priest hadn’t been able to give me an answer I liked.

  I parked across the street from his house. We sat and waited until his parents finally left, sliding down in the seats as they drove past. I watched them disappear around the corner. I waited a couple of minutes to make sure they didn’t return, then I jumped out of my car and ran to the front door. Andrei and Nuada waited in the car to see if I needed help.

  I pounded on the door until Logan answered. He leaned against the frame. “So, couldn’t stay away from me, could you?”

  “You have to come with me right now.”

  “Give me one good reason.”

  “I can’t. Look, you trusted me once, can you trust me again?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I’m intrigued. I’ll go with you. It’s not like I had plans today.” He stepped out and closed the door behind me.

  “What are they doing here?” he asked when he saw Andrei and Nuada in the backseat.

  “Doesn’t matter. Just get in.”

  We got in the car and I drove toward Ismene’s shop. We needed to do this before the shop opened.

  When we reached the shop, Ismene was waiting. “Where are we?” Logan asked.

  “Take him into the back room,” Ismene ordered.

  I grabbed his arm and tried to pull him, but he wouldn’t move. I went behind him and shoved as hard as I could. “I really wish you would cooperate,” I grumbled.

  Andrei picked Logan up and carried him into the back room. Logan kicked and struggled, but Andrei was stronger. He dropped Logan on his feet. Give me strength, I prayed, although I wasn’t sure if anyone was listening. I hooked a leg behind his knee and pushed at his shoulder, dropping him to the floor as he had taught me so long ago. Ismene carried the tea over, but Logan wouldn’t drink it.

  He struggled and set his jaw. I hauled his head back using his hair as a handle. He yelled and Ismene poured the tea down his throat. He gulped reflexively and his eyes went wide. His pupils dilated until there was no green left. His eyes fluttered, closed, and his breath became ragged and shallow. Then his whole body went stiff. I could feel his heart racing out of control, then he began to convulse. I sat on the floor with his head in my lap, tears spilling out of my eyes and dripping on his face. At last his seizure stopped. His heart rate slowed. The beats came further and further apart. It sputtered to a stop and I knew he was gone.

  “Please let this work!” I said out loud. “Ismene, bring the antidote.”

  “There is no antidote.”

  I pulled my eyes from Logan’s face. “What do you mean, there’s no antidote?”

  “I didn’t make one,” she said simply.

  I gently laid Logan’s head on the floor and stood up. “You didn’t make one?” I shouted.

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but he had to die.” She left the room.

  I wanted to go after Ismene, but I had to save Logan. He needed an antidote before he was gone forever. I knelt back down next to his lifeless body. I placed a hand on his chest as I had done before. The now-familiar golden light surrounded my hand. “Live.”

  Nothing happened. I pushed against his chest, trying to compress his heart so it would beat again. “Live!” I ordered.

  It didn’t seem to be doing any good. I opened his mouth and tilted his head back. I didn’t think CPR would help, but it wouldn’t hurt to try. My whole body was glowing with the light now. I set my lips against his and blew my breath into his mouth. “Please live,” I whispered against his lips.

  Amazingly, I felt a faint beat. I put my fingers to his neck. There was a pulse! His chest began to rise and fall, and I began to cry again. His eyes finally opened. They were back to their normal, shining emerald green.

  “Raena?” Logan whispered.

  I grabbed his hand. “I’m here.”

  “What happened?” He sat up. “Where are we?”

  I ran my hand through his hair and pulled him close. “Don’t worry. Everything’s okay now.”

  He struggled to his feet with some help from me. His knees buckled as he stood. He fell against me and his weight knocked us both back to the floor.

  We knelt on the floor, staring into each other’s eyes. “Are you okay?” I asked. I knew it was a stupid question. He had just been dead, however briefly.

  “I’m fine.” He searched my face.

  I couldn’t stop myself. I grabbed his face and lowered it to mine. When our mouths met, I felt a surge of electricity. His arms wrapped around my waist and pulled me up against him. His lips felt ice cold, but they quickly warmed against my own.

  “A-hem,” Nuada cleared her throat from where she was standing on the other side of the room. Logan and I broke apart, startled. I had been so absorbed in Logan that I had forgotten they were there. “Need some help?” she asked.

  Before she could move, Andrei came over, picked Logan up off the floor and set him on his feet. Then he offered me his hand and helped me up.

  “What are you doing here? Raena, run!” Logan shouted as he swung a fist at Andrei. Andrei ducked and Logan lost his balance.

  Andrei grabbed him again to steady him. “Whoa, Logan. You were just dead. You need some time to recover.”

  “Logan, calm down. Andrei’s fine,” I said before Logan could try to hit Andrei again.

  Logan looked at me in confusion. “What do you mean, he’s fine? He tried to kill you.”

  I sighed. “That was months ago.”

  “Months ago? Are you forgetting when he tried to kill you at the beach? You’re just going to forgive him, just like that?”

  “Believe me, it hasn’t been easy.”

  “Wait. I must be missing something. What exa
ctly happened?” He looked around. “Come to think of it, where are we?” He pointed at Nuada. “And who is that?”

  “Slow down. I’ll explain. Remember my cat?” He nodded. “That’s her. She’s a shape-shifting sorceress sent by my father, who I thought was dead. Apparently he sent her to protect me.”

  His eyes grew wide. “Okay… but what about Andrei?”

  “Andrei’s been… redeemed. He’s actually helped me a lot these past few weeks while you were under the spell.”

  “What spell? Did that sorceress cast one on me?” He pointed at Nuada again. “If she’s supposedly here to help you, that’s not very helpful.”

  “No, it wasn’t her. It was a witch.”

  “Sorceress, witch, what’s the difference?”

  “I’m not entirely sure.” I looked at Nuada helplessly.

  “Sorceresses are generally good. Witch is kind of… a derogatory word,” Nuada informed us. She glanced around. “Now can we get out of here? Something’s weird.”

  “You mean besides the fact that I just killed my boyfriend and brought him back? Yeah, that’s definitely weird.”

  “No time for quips. I’m serious.” She pointed at Andrei, who had an odd, angry look on his face. “See, Devil Boy senses it too.”

  “Huh?” Andrei started.

  “We need to leave.”

  “Yes, we definitely need to do that.”

  “Fine.” I noticed that Logan seemed a little wobbly on his feet, so I ducked my head under his arm, swinging it across my shoulder. “I’ll help you walk.” I knew he wasn’t ready to trust Andrei. It would be slow going, but we could probably get him to where I left my car.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Andrei

  I pulled Nuada aside as we left the psychic’s shop. “What do you want?” she demanded.

  I shushed her then kept an eye on Rae and Logan. Rae was supporting my brother as he walked slowly and unsteadily — dying didn’t agree with him. His human body couldn’t take the trauma. I wondered briefly if he was truly mortal. Rae had been the one to administer the poison. As she was immortal, there was no way of knowing. I should have had Nuada force the poison down my brother’s throat. If he had died anyway, then we would have known he was mortal.

  Once they were out of earshot, I whispered to Nuada. “We have a big problem. I need your advice.”

  She laughed. “Oh? Big immortal devil boy needs my help? How the tables have turned! Okay, what’s this huge ‘problem’,“ here she made quotation marks with her fingers, ”that you need me for?”

  “Ismene the psychic and Serafina are the same.”

  “What?” She shrieked it so loudly that people passing us by stopped and stared. I smiled at them and they continued on. I glanced around. Rae and Logan were struggling up the hill toward the parking lot now. Guess we should have parked down in the Village. The lot was farther, but not up a hill.

  “Shh! Stop yelling. We can’t tell them yet.” I pointed at my brother and Rae.

  “Why not? They need to know.”

  I grabbed my head and pulled at my hair in frustration. “I don’t know. They need to know, but first I need to figure out how to tell them.”

  “It’s simple. ‘Hey, Rae, Logan… You know that crazy girl? Well, she’s the same person as the psychic. Told you not to trust her.’ That shouldn’t be hard for you, right?”

  “This is all my fault,” I moaned.

  “Yes, it is.”

  I glared at her. “Way to be helpful, cat.”

  “I’m not a cat.”

  “Fine, sorceress. Whatever you say.”

  “Are you capable of calling me by my actual name?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Now, why was Serafina… Ismene… whatever you want to call her… involved in this from the beginning?”

  She mused about that a moment. “Ismene seemed fine when I first went to her.”

  “Wait, when you went to her?”

  “Yeah… I kind of went to her for her help when you first started going all crazy on Rae,” she admitted sheepishly.

  “So this is your fault, not mine. You brought her into it.”

  Now it was her turn to glare. “Is it possible you’re wrong? That Sera and Ismene aren’t the same? Maybe it was just this one time Sera decided to take Ismene’s form.”

  “No. I doubt it. She’s crazy and she’s obsessed with me. More like she’s been Ismene from the beginning.”

  “Jealous?”

  “Me? No.”

  “I meant, she’s jealous that you wanted Rae.”

  “Oh that. Yeah, probably.”

  “Why’d you bring her into this?”

  “I thought we’d already established that you brought her into this.” I pointed at her, jabbing my finger into her shoulder where it met her arm.

  “Hey!” She poked her finger into my chest, cutting through the cloth of my shirt with her razor-sharp nails. “Stop with the pointing.”

  I grabbed her hand and yanked it away from my chest. Her nail scraped against my skin. “Watch it. You’re going to draw blood with those things.”

  She dropped her arm and asked, “So what do we do?”

  “First, we help Rae get my brother back to my house. He needs time to rest and recuperate. Then we go after the witch.”

  She nodded in agreement and we sprinted up the hill to help Rae with Logan.

  Chapter Thirty

  Raena

  We loaded Logan into my car. I sat in the backseat with him, his head in my lap. Andrei drove and Nuada took the front passenger seat. “Be careful, please,” I admonished Andrei.

  “Hey, I’ve been driving since cars were invented. We’ll be fine.”

  “Where are we taking him anyway?” Nuada asked.

  “I told you, my house. It’s the safest place. Sera knows where Logan lives, plus his parents are there. I don’t want to worry them again, or Rae’s family. Besides, Sera knows where Rae lives too.”

  “What do you mean, she knows where I live?” I interjected. “She’s never been to my house.”

  Andrei sighed loudly. “Tell her,” Nuada insisted.

  “Tell me what?”

  “Look, whatever you have to say, just tell her now. I’m tired of all the lying and evasion,” Logan said.

  “Fine,” Andrei said. “But remember that I didn’t want to tell you like this, and I don’t know what we’re going to do about it.”

  I felt a sinking in my stomach. That sounded bad. “Just tell me,” I whispered, a little worried about what words were going to come out of his mouth next.

  “Ismene isn’t who you think she is.”

  “So? You’ve told me that before. Or, something similar at least.”

  “Rae, listen to me. Ismene is Serafina.”

  “That’s impossible. I’ve seen them together before.”

  “Have you?”

  I thought about it a moment. Actually I hadn’t. “No, I guess not. But that doesn’t mean they’re the same person.”

  We reached Andrei’s house. He pulled into the driveway and shut off my car. “Just come inside, all of you. We’ll continue this conversation once we’re in the house.”

  After he got out of the car, he came around to the back and opened the door. He leaned in. “How much do you trust me?” he asked Logan.

  “Not at all,” Logan answered.

  Andrei gave a thin, strained smile. “Probably a good move.” He grabbed Logan’s legs and dragged him out of the car. Logan began to slump to the ground, but Andrei reached down and picked Logan up, slinging him over his shoulder once more. He offered me a hand, but I was already out of the car.

  Nuada opened the door for us. “Why do you leave your door unlocked?” I asked Andrei.

  “It’s protected by a spell. No one’s supposed to be able to open it except me.” He stared at Nuada.

  “What?” She crossed her arms. “A simple lock-picking trick. Any charlatan could handle that.”

  Once inside,
Nuada locked and bolted the door behind us. We followed Andrei into the room where the portal was located. He laid Logan down on the bed, then brought out his mortar and pestle. I sat on the bed next to Logan. I didn’t want to be far from him after everything that had happened.

  “Don’t worry,” Andrei reassured us. “I just need to seal the portal. I don’t want Serafina or anything else to come through it. Nuada, if you could help me?”

  The herbs he used were definitely different from the ones he had used before to open the portal when he dragged me to the Shadow Imperium. I could tell by the smell. They were less pungent, more sweet-smelling. Where the previous herbs had smelled like death, these smelled of sunshine and light.

  “I’m not supposed to be in possession of these, let alone using them,” Andrei confided in us. “I could get in a huge amount of trouble. The avenging angels could easily find me if they happened to be in the area and smelled these herbs or felt their power.”

  “So why use them?” Nuada asked.

  “It’s the best way to keep Serafina out. Apparently, she’s a lot stronger and sneakier than I thought.”

  He began his guttural chant, as Nuada spread the herbs that he had mixed into a paste all across the door frame. “Skllei tjel inaml iuma quola paoij. Vmeall polj eiml aiwemlal caolw perlj qofae olgg jiol!”

  As we watched, the doorway shimmered. A bright light shone from the cracks, blinding us all. We began to cover our eyes, but as quickly as it came, the light disappeared.

  “What did you say?” I asked in awe.

  “Better that you don’t know,” Andrei told me.

  “I understood some of it,” Logan cut in.

  “What did it say?”

  He shuddered a little. “Like Andrei said, better that you don’t know. It wasn’t pretty.”

  I felt a little left out until Nuada informed me that she hadn’t understood it either. “You don’t want to get involved with the devils,” she said.

  “Nuada, look around.” I gestured at Logan and Andrei. “I’m already involved.” I glanced at Andrei. “Can you please explain now?”

  “Yes, the portal is sealed now. It should be safe to speak. Like I said, Ismene the psychic and Serafina the witch are the same person, or entity, if you will. Technically devils aren’t people.” He began to pace the room as he talked. “You wouldn’t have made the connection. Serafina has always been extremely good at changing her appearance. That’s why you didn’t recognize her as Ismene or as the girl who brought you food in the Shadow Imperium.”