by Rain Oxford
When she turned on the light, she was surprised to see Remy’s favorite mug, full of tea already made and still steaming hot on the counter. She didn’t think this was strange because she saw my keychain and one of my mystery books next to it.
She knew I didn’t normally drink tea myself, but I often made it for Remy when she was stressed. What Dani didn’t know was that that was the keychain that had gone missing off my nightstand, and I finished that book in October.
Devon is so sweet. Forgetful, apparently, but sweet. She picked it up, along with my book and keys. First, she dropped by my office to set my stuff on the table. Then, as she walked out of my office, Kimba ran around the corner and crashed into her. She hit the wall and the mug went flying, crashing into the floor.
That kid just saved Remington from being poisoned when I failed. It wasn’t by his quick thinking or impressive powers; it was by chance. Veronica was smart. She could possess and control people, read minds, and stop my intuition.
But she couldn’t see the future.
Dani got back up and scolded Kimba about running. It was fruitless and she knew it. He climbed to his huge paws, shook his gangly legs out, uttered a pathetic lion version of an apology, and ran away. Dani returned to the kitchen to make Remy a new cup of tea, which I carefully watched. There was no instance of a missing or blurred memory.
Her thoughts drifted to the other chores she had to do throughout the day, but she kept her eyes on the tea and water. Then, with the tea in hand, she grabbed a towel and dropped it over the spill on her way to Remy’s office.
“Hey, I made a mess in the hallway. I’ll be right back if that’s okay,” she said, setting the tea on Remy’s desk.
“Of course. What happened?”
She hesitated, not wanting to get Kimba in trouble. “I accidentally dropped your favorite mug.”
Remy smiled at her. “It’s just a mug. I liked the shape of it, but I’ll get another one the next time I go into the city. If it had been you who got hurt, that would upset me. I can’t get another Dani in the city.”
Dani laughed. “I bet you say that to all the girls who bring your tea and fetch your mail.”
“I do, as a matter of fact.” Because Dani was the only woman who did that for her.
Dani went to clean up the mess, but found Kimba already cleaning it up, dressed and in his person form.
* * *
I pulled out of Dani’s mind and nearly collapsed with relief. Without a word, I turned to Remy and hugged her from behind. She clutched the bucket to her chest, sweating. “Oh, god, don’t touch me. I feel like that human-alien mutant hybrid from Alien Resurrection and I’m pretty sure I missed the bucket.”
“Well, get ready to feel that way for nine months, because you were not chemically sterilized,” Dr. Martin said.
“You didn’t have to phrase it like that. I would like to have sex again in my life,” I said.
“Go for it. I’m never having sex again if this is what I get,” Remy said. After dry-heaving into the bucket for another minute, she asked, “Does this mean I’m pregnant?”
“No; it is possible to have unprotected sex and not get pregnant.”
“For a month?”
He frowned at me, as if it didn’t take two people to make a baby. “When did you last take it?” I asked Remy.
“I take it on the fifteenth every month. Did she say which potion she switched?”
“She just said it was about a month ago, so it must have been the November one. It was more like two weeks.” We’d used condoms for most of November.
“Four weeks,” Remy said.
“Three weeks, then.” She nodded.
“Whether you are pregnant or not, you were not poisoned, so you can still get pregnant. In case you are, I can’t give you a contraception potion now.”
Remy shook her head. “I don’t want another potion for the rest of my life.”
“I’ll take it if it’s safe,” I said. “If she’s pregnant, it won’t hurt for me to take it, right?”
“No, that wouldn’t hurt.”
“Can we run a pregnancy test?”
“We can, but if she only missed the last potion, it will still be enough to throw off the test. It doesn’t disappear entirely on day thirty-two. In fact, there’s a good chance it still hasn’t worn off entirely and has been protecting her just enough.
“When can we test her?”
“So that there’s no chance of a skewed test, I would suggest waiting a full month since her missed potion.”
“December 16?”
Dr. Martin nodded.
Remy squeezed my hand.
* * *
Remy and I got an early dinner and took it to my room. We both needed a little peace and quiet to process the situation. We ate in silence and the food settled her stomach. Then, when I was done, she broke the silence. “I’m a very high-strung person,” she said.
I wasn’t about to argue.
“I don’t like people challenging me and I don’t like chaos. I don’t like things being out of my hand. I will work until my nails are bleeding and my legs won’t move if I have to get something done. I have never been afraid of hard work. I will fight for a good outcome… but there are some things I can’t do anything about. I don’t always know what the right path to take is, and there’s no way for me to know until it’s done.”
“Do you want me to use my visions to see if you’re pregnant?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because this might not be Veronica’s only attempt. What if you see that I’m not pregnant and on the sixteenth, Andrew says I am? Then I’ll know that something will cause me to lose the baby. No.” She took a deep breath. “I want to talk about this right here and now, and then ignore it. I don’t even want to think about it until Veronica is gone and Andrew runs the test.”
“And if you are pregnant?”
She took another deep breath. “Since I can remember, I didn’t want to have kids. We should have talked about it before we got serious, but it was never the right time. However, the moment that I thought I could never have children, when that choice was taken away from me, I realized that my decisions shouldn’t be driven by fear. Whether I have children or not should be based on if I really want them, not if I think I would be a terrible mother.”
“Are you saying that you want children?”
“I’m saying that I might want children in a few years.”
I grabbed her hand. “You fight tooth and claw to show everyone that you’re tough, but you don’t actually believe you are. You say the school isn’t that important to you because you’re trying to convince yourself that it’s not, because you’re afraid someone is going to take it away. You’re also not sure you deserve it because your father gave it to you. I don’t want you to hate me for saying this, but you’re just like your father.”
She tried to take her hand away, but I held on. “That’s a horrible thing to say!”
“But you know that, so you’re fighting it. You’re powerful, and you’re constantly tense, trying to protect people from that power. Your father held you so damned close because he lost your mother and he was afraid of losing you. When he realized he was already losing you, he gave you what he had and let you go. That was the bravest and strongest thing he’d ever done in his life, and he did it for you. You’re afraid that I’ll resent you like you do him, so you push me away, but at the same time, you’re pulling me closer. It’s not just me, either. You’re overprotective of the school, of everyone you love, and you’re trying not to be.”
She sighed. “How do you avoid being overprotective?”
I scoffed. “I don’t. I own up to it. I know what you, Darwin, and Henry are capable of, but I’m still me. If I save you from something and you hate me for it, at least you’re alive to hate me, and I can live with that.”
“So what if I decide I want kids, and you don’t?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we com
e to it. I’m not going to resent you for wanting different things than me, or for wanting to be with me. As long as you’re honest with me about what you want, we’ll be good.”
* * *
Thursday, December 8
I woke alone in my bed. I wasn’t surprised, but it solidified my resolve to deal with Veronica once and for all. First, I summoned my staff to me. Much to my relief, it appeared in hand with no problem. We really didn’t need any more disadvantages in facing her.
Then I went to Dr. Martin to summon John Cross’s ghost. “I can make John’s shade obey, but not easily,” Dr. Martin said.
“Shade? Is that a ghost?”
“There is a difference between a ghost and a shade,” he explained. “Not in the traditional sense, but in the necromancer one. My people feed on souls, but only necromancers like me can control the dead. When a soul is used up, it ceases to exist. A wizard of Dothra can use his own soul, but he can also steal the life-force of people he defeats. A person can also offer his soul as debt, like when humans make a deal with one of us. Things work differently on Earth.”
“Good. I don’t like the idea of eating souls.”
“Well, here, souls aren’t eaten. Instead, they pass into another realm or stay here as ghosts. What makes them do one or the other doesn’t concern me, but I call them shades if they do pass to another realm and ghosts if they stay. John Cross is not a ghost, but I can call his shade back to this world.”
“I’m glad to hear he didn’t stick around.”
“When I summoned Miranda, she was a shade, as her soul belonged in Dothra. That’s why you were all able to see her. Normal people can’t see ghosts, but shades are more like mirrors.”
“Can you make him teach me?”
“No. I can trap him and prevent him from attacking you or lying, but I can’t make him teach you how to use his magic.”
“Shit. That puts a damper on the plan. I’ll figure it out, though. Call him up.”
We went to the library for this because it had space and we were less likely to be disturbed than in my office. Cy wasn’t happy that he was getting kicked out of “his office” and made us promise not to hurt the books. “Aren’t you supposed to be in class?” I asked.
“Our substitute gave us a writing assignment for the whole week, and I finished it on Monday.”
Once he left, Dr. Martin got to work creating a circle of dried roots and herbs on the floor. Then he set five fat, black candles inside the circle. “I need something of John’s, too.”
“Right. I forgot about that.” I called Ghost. After a minute, I grew worried that he wasn’t coming, until I heard an irritating meow from on top of one of the bookshelves. Ghost had enough shit on his plate and had saved our asses many times, so I tried to be polite to him. “Thanks for coming. Can you please tell my uncle that I need something of John’s?”
Ghost meowed with suspicion.
“Yeah, it’s for a spell.”
He vanished. It took nearly five minutes before Vincent appeared out of the shadows, looking distressed. “You should not be doing magic that deals with my brother. You seem to have forgotten how dangerous he was.”
“I haven’t forgotten. I was in his head, remember? He almost killed my mother. I know he was a horrible person, but now we’re dealing with someone worse.”
“There is no one worse than John Cross.”
“Veronica tried to get Remy pregnant and then kill the baby.”
“John killed his own daughter because she wasn’t powerful. Who knows how many others?”
I hesitated. He was right.
“Whatever you are planning to do to stop Veronica, you should not involve John. Using your favorite analogy, that would be the equivalent of fighting fire with grease.”
I considered his words for a moment and he relaxed, thinking that I understood his point and was going to give up. I did understand his position, but he hadn’t faced Veronica. I was glad that he had my mother and his brother was gone. His fight was over. But John wasn’t my fight.
“I’m sorry for what you went through. I’ll never know how bad it really was between you two and I won’t try to find out. However, I won’t fear a dead man.”
“You should,” Dr. Martin said. “You can see ghosts, and Vitalis almost killed you a few months ago.”
“Not the time,” I said.
“Sorry.”
“The longer it takes me to get answers, the more people Veronica could kill. What if she decides to go after my mother next? You couldn’t protect her against John, and Veronica is even more powerful. Do you hate John more than you love my mother?”
Recognition filled his eyes as he contemplated it. He wanted to protect my mother, but against Veronica, he couldn’t. He pulled a white satin bundle out of his pocket and held it out to me. I took it. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said. Then the shadows closed around him and he vanished.
I opened the cloth and found John’s ring. The band was simple metal. The sinister part of the ring was the brown recluse spider trapped in amber. I set it in the center of the circle.
After Dr. Martin motioned with his hands and the candles lit, I turned out the lamps in the library. Red blood poured over the sides of the candles and pooled on the floor. Even as the blood became an inch deep, it didn’t cross the circle of roots and herbs.
Then the candles emitted smoke that flowed upward and towards the center. My intuition warned me that this was insanely dangerous, but I ignored it. The smoke formed into a ghostly shape before developing color and facial details. John had short black hair, cold, dark brown eyes, high cheekbones, light skin, frown lines on his forehead, and a crescent scar from the right edge of his mouth to the sharp edge of his chin.
He was no less chilling in death than he had been in life, despite Dr. Martin’s ghost trap. I didn’t know what to think about the dark bruises around his throat— the visual reminder that I had killed him with my own hands. I would do it again knowing what he did to my mother, but I wouldn’t feel less wrong about it.
Nevertheless, he stood still as a statue and made no sign that he saw let alone recognized me.
“My connection is good,” Dr. Martin said.
“Why isn’t he… reacting?”
“You are seeing an image of his soul, but he can’t see us yet. I am giving you a chance to prepare yourself, because if you show fear, he will kill you.”
“He can do that?”
“If you give him power over you. Power is given. Control is taken. You must control the situation and your own fear, or you will give him the power to destroy you. Are you prepared?”
“Give me a minute.” I studied his face. I’d always seen him as a monster, at least since I knew who he was. He’d never done anything good for anyone… except apparently Rita. It was strange to think about— that he could be what someone wanted. That he could be kind. Then again, the twin’s mother said that he was kind to her at first.
He stole my mother from Vincent and tortured her, but it was never about her; it was about hurting Vincent. I wondered why Rita was different. Was it because of her power or did he actually like her? Maybe it was both. Maybe there were more women that he liked over the years. The idea that John Cross actually had a heart was bizarre. That didn’t mean it was wrong, though.
Then I mentally removed the scar, the hard lines, and the anger from his face and imagined him as the child I saw in the paintings at Arthur’s home. He was a serious and somber child, just like Jameson, so I had assumed he was born that way. I was cursed with his sinister blood just as Jamie and Veronica were.
But Jamie didn’t have to turn out like Veronica or John. Maybe John didn’t have to be that way either. Even if he was born with that darkness, perhaps he could have changed if his mother had stayed with him or if his father was kinder.
Or maybe he would have started killing people at a much younger age.
Either way, he would never kill someone again. “I’m ready,” I
said.
Dr. Martin gestured towards the shade and John started moving. After a moment of confusion, his eyes locked on me and he smirked cruelly. How had I missed that Veronica was his daughter? They had the same damned evil grin.
“I’m afraid your resurrection skills are lacking,” he said calmly.
“You’re delusional if you think you’re ever going to see the light of day again.”
He studied the floor for a moment and gave Dr. Martin a disapproving glance before focusing on me again. “Why have you called me then?”
“As much as I’d love to hear that you’re in hell, getting hot coals and porcupines shoved up your ass on the regular, I’ve summoned you because you left us with a mess.”
He frowned for a moment, probably visualizing my idea of justice, until he realized what I was talking about. “Veronica.”
“Yes.”
He laughed. “I was looking forward to watching you two face off. You were the first, but you weren’t my favorite. Let me guess; you have been using my power without any training and now that she’s ready to play, you have no idea what you’re doing?”
“I have powers she doesn’t have.”
He scoffed. “You know mind control is stronger than my brother’s visions, and you don’t have the training she does.”
“You couldn’t get to me around Astrid.”
“I don’t know who that is. I suppose you want me to train you now? Well, you’re out of luck. I offered to let you join me.”
“I don’t need training; I need to know what her weakness is.”
He laughed. “There is none.”
Maybe Darwin was right. Maybe alchemy was too perfect. It explained why my powers weren’t affected by the curse. However, even if there were no weaknesses in our magic, that didn’t mean Veronica didn’t have some. For that case, John had flaws. “Maybe I would have better luck with the vampires. Is that why you hate them so bad? Does your power not work on them because of their thrall?”
“My power is far stronger than them. Their thrall doesn’t work on me and my power does work on them perfectly.”