by Summa, S. E.
“Her hex is reaching out to me again. This is what I saw before, but yesterday my skin lit blue only after her hex wrapped around my wrist. Today, it felt like magic embedded in my skin called to hers, coaxing it to touch me. It’s so weak, but I think the touch is making her stronger.”
Seraphina rotated her head back and forth on the pillow. Her chest lifted in the direction of Marceau’s hand and he quickly lifted his arm higher. She’d almost touched him with more than her hex. He hissed as the strands tightened on his wrists in response to his movement holding him in place.
Her face was still red and sweat dripped in long beads onto the pillow, but Seraphina’s breathing slowed into an even rhythm.
Finn leaned down while examining the tendrils rising from Seraphina. “How do you feel, Marc? Is that thing hurting you?”
Her hex was gaining strength, darkening, and glowing. The color of the cords became more and more vibrant. Still mostly a rosy pink, but with occasional bursts of red. The scrolls and designs on her arms sharpened and spread along her shoulders toward her chest.
“No, she feels amazingly warm. I was so cold last night. A hot shower and coffee were the only things helping me this morning.”
A larger tendril of color rose and stroked along his arm to the inside crook of his elbow. Caressing. Tasting.
Seraphina’s eyes opened, now showing only white. Without warning, both her hands shot up and grabbed Marceau’s.
Her fingers interlocked with his and Seraphina screamed as her body arced off the bed.
“Oh shit, no,” Marceau yelled. His eyes bulged at their intertwined hands. Seraphina squeezed so hard, his fingers felt as if they’d break at any moment. But that was not the reason for Marceau’s terror.
Khat grabbed Finn and wrapped her arms around him. She said, “Wait, Finn.”
He started to pull away, but she shifted in front of him and held her arms out. Khat said, “Wait, damn it. Stop and look.”
Finn’s mouth dropped open.
The blue and red patterns on Marceau and Seraphina’s arms were changing. The marks were joining and stretching into a new complex pattern. As the symbols entwined, they changed to a purple hue, the red and blue indistinguishable.
Seraphina’s eyes rolled forward, and she looked up at Marceau. Her face was still flushed. She glanced around the room trying to figure out what had happened. “What’s wrong?”
Marceau answered in a soft voice, forced calm. “You were sick. A fever. I was trying to help you.”
She smiled. “I was burning up. It really hurt, Marceau. I couldn’t scream. It was as if I were trapped, unable to move, while my blood boiled in my veins.” Seraphina closed her eyes and shivered as if shaking off the memory of her pain. “Thank you for helping me.” She took a steady breath and then seemed to really see him for the first time. “What’s wrong? I’m feeling better. I think it’s okay now. Why do you look so upset?”
“Our hands, Seraphina. You’re holding my hands.” Marceau squeezed gently.
She gasped and looked down at their interlocked hands. She instinctively started to back up, but he squeezed again to stop her. It was too late now.
Seraphina looked back up at him, terror etched on her face. “I, I’m sorry.”
“No, I am. I’m so sorry. I love you, and I can’t let the curse take your life.” Marceau leaned closer. “This is really, really important, Seraphina. You have to do something for me. Please let the curse take me. It’s okay. I’ve done some, well, some terrible things in my life. Let me know I saved you, let me redeem myself by saving your life.”
Seraphina’s eyes flared. She started shaking her head no and then she froze. “Wait, I don’t feel anything. Death isn’t pulling me. How can that be?” She stared down at their hands again. “Before, when I touched Aedan, it took only a moment. Finn and Aedan both held my wrists and I could feel the ache, the emptiness of death taking over my heart. It took hold quickly. I only had a moment to choose whether to release it or pull it into myself. To die, so they could live.”
“Oh, Sera,” Khat whispered. Tears streaked down her face. She still stood in front of Finn.
But Finn was on his knees.
“Finn?” Marceau asked. The sharpness of his tone caught Khat’s attention and she turned around. “Finn? What’s wrong?” Khat cried out as Finn began to crumple forward. She dove in front of him and tried to soften his fall.
Finn’s breathing was shallow. He laid his forehead on the floor while Khat sat beside him and pulled him into her lap.
“Finn.” Seraphina sat up.
“Don’t let go, Seraphina,” Marceau said. He climbed onto the bed with her so she could go to Finn. Their hands never broke contact.
“Finn,” Seraphina sobbed and knelt beside him.
Finn was too weak to respond. He tried to focus on Khat and then Seraphina, but his eyelids fluttered closed.
“Why? Why is the curse taking him? I don’t feel Death at all.” Seraphina cried. She tried to let go of Marceau’s right hand, but he squeezed tighter.
“You don’t know what will happen if you touch him,” Marceau pleaded.
“No, but I see what’s happening if I don’t. Let go, Marceau.” She jerked a hand free.
“You could die,” Marceau cried.
Seraphina looked at him as if willing him to understand. “I could save him. I have to try.”
She reached out and placed her hand on Finn’s chest just above his heart. Finn gasped and his eyes shot back open. The veins in his neck bulged as his body spasmed.
Finn’s hex flared black and silver around him. It whipped out from his body and thick shadowy cords wrapped tightly around Seraphina’s arm. She cried out in pain, but when Marceau tried to pull her away with the hand he still held, she pleaded, “No, let him.”
Marceau couldn’t just sit here and watch either of them die. He was a curseweaver, so maybe he could find a way. He held his breath and laid his empty hand on Finn’s chest next to Seraphina’s.
“You don’t know what that will do,” Seraphina argued.
“Well, neither did you, and I have to try too,” he managed to say before crushing pressure took his breath away.
Marceau watched the three colors of the hexes unite. Blue, red, and black tendrils rose and collided between them. When they intertwined, a flash of bright light blinded him. The world fell away from him and Marceau was somewhere else.
Chapter Twenty-Five
He was alone.
Marceau rose to his feet and stood in a dark forest. The light of a full moon above illuminated his surroundings.
Confused, he flattened his palm against his chest. His heart beat loud and fast as if he’d been running. He’d been doing something important before. He was supposed to be somewhere else.
Wait, the hexes united.
Marceau whipped around in a circle trying to get his bearings. He had to get back before Seraphina did anything impulsive.
Stumbling in no particular direction, he tripped over winding tree roots hidden under thick piles of decomposing leaves. He had to find Seraphina. He had to save her.
A deranged, high-pitched laugh ahead pulled Marceau from his panic. He froze and focused on his surroundings. The air smelled of damp earth and familiar decay. Long swaths of Spanish moss swayed as a hot, humid breeze blew through the branches of old trees. He jumped at a sudden splash and turned his head. Behind him, low lying fog covered deep darkness and a heavy musty odor indicated a body of stagnant water.
A swamp?
Damn it. If this was one of Max’s hellish games, he would…
A feminine voice echoed from the darkness somewhere to his left.
The outline of a young woman took shape as her outstretched hands glowed a faint blue. In the soft light, tracks of shadow cut across her face, and she murmured angrily, too soft for Marceau to understand. He caught a few words of French, but her pronunciations were peculiar. The light gradually intensified and he gasped as he recognized her
face.
Lynette?
Her blonde hair was in a complicated bun, a flower and a pink ribbon circled her forehead. The old-fashioned dress with a delicate layer of pink lace covered a long silk slip, above a pair of small heeled, Oxford shoes.
Lynette squinted as her delicate hands cupped together, capturing a glow in her palms. She murmured, then spit into her hands and the light flared brighter. Her hands swirled around the object, shaping it into a sphere. The blue magic growing in her hands made her eyes an even richer shade of blue. No longer was her left eye the milky white to which he was accustomed. Both of her eyes were clear and her gaze focused sharply on the power expanding in her hands. Lynette’s painted lips peeled back from her teeth, and she let an inhuman bark of laughter escape as the light flared again. The power no longer wisped freely; it had solidified into a ball, into a hex.
Marceau approached.
How would Lynette learn to cast a hex? Especially one this powerful? The cluttered forest floor snapped and crunched under his feet, but Lynette took no notice of him. A small animal scurried away as his footfalls disturbed its hiding spot, and an owl hooted in response to the movement of his prey.
Marceau stood before her. He could smell her familiar perfume, a unique blend of lavender and sage. When he reached for her, Lynette’s head jerked up and she glared at him.
“Why are you doing this, Lynette?” Marceau asked. “This magic will cost you, will hurt you. Who could deserve such a dangerous curse?”
“Lynette? My name is Mirela. I know no Lynette. Leave me be or I’ll hex you too.”
Max must have changed her name too… Mirela. Mirela?
Adrenaline shot through Marceau’s body.
A Curse Regression.
He’d done a fully corporeal Curse Regression on Seraphina’s and Finn’s curse. He was here and witnessing the actual weaving of their hex, but why would Lynette, er, Mirela cast such a curse?
Judge Pearce, Seraphina’s father.
“Did Judge Pearce ask you to do this? Are you working for him?”
“Judge Pearce?” Mirela laughed. “That pompous, old fool thinks everyone in Savannah works for him. I took his money, but the hex is my own. I’m done playing nice. Today, I take matters into my own hands.”
Marceau looked around him. He had to stop her, although he didn’t want to hurt her, he couldn’t just stand there either.
“I enjoyed the Judge begging me for a curse, though. Turns out Mr. Runs the City can’t even control his spoiled rotten daughter. He gave me the key to cursing her and paid me for it too. The chump.”
“Ly…Mirela, you have to stop. You don’t know what you’re doing, the pain you will cause.
She pulled something from a scarf tied at her waist and raised her clenched fist. “Oh, I know exactly what I’m doing. If I can’t have him, I’ll be damned if she will. The Judge gave me a lock of her hair and her most precious belonging.”
Marceau looked for a branch or rock. He didn’t dare touch her while she held the hex, but if he could knock her out somehow. Maybe he could take what she had of Seraphina’s and stop her from…
“Before I knew who he wanted to be cursed, I said no. I wasn’t going to be threatened, not even by him. Mirela L’Argent Dufrene doesn’t bow down to any man.”
Mirela L’Argent Dufrene? L’Argent.
Marceau covered his mouth and forced himself to stay quiet. Knocking her out was no longer an option. He needed to hear the rest.
“I’ll take the life of his daughter, his precious Seraphina Pearce.” Mirela sneered and her hands moved farther apart as the orb grew. The magic fed on her emotions. “She said he never loved me. She said she was trying to help me? She wanted him for herself.”
The orb pulsed as a shot of red power flowed over its surface.
Mirela continued, “Well, she’ll never know the touch of true love again. The Judge wanted her to love that young captain? Oh, she’ll love him all right, with a ferocity that will burn in her veins. She’ll love him beyond all reason, but she’ll never know the comfort of his arms.”
The hex burned brighter as her hatred strengthened it. Mirela reached her empty hand into the scarf at her waist again and pulled a shiny object from it.
“And Finn, that hotshot won’t be driving away from me anytime soon. He thinks he’s too good for me? I got a little something of his too, his good luck charm. He can either love me or suffer right along with her. His touch will determine his fate. He’d better choose wisely.”
Dark magic poured over the hex like a thick, black liquid.
Marceau tried to grab her arm and an electric bolt shot from the hex, knocking him backward. His torso arched from the ground. The back of his head dug deeply into the dirt and his feet scrambled against the ground as pure, magical energy flooded his senses. He couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, and couldn’t breathe. His body shuddered, painfully constricted as he rode out the magical current and was finally released. He fell back to the ground when his muscles relaxed.
Mirela chanted. Repeating phrases in an archaic version of French. Her neck rocked forward and back, forward and back, as her chanting grew louder, echoing away and returning. Her long, curly hair came unbound and stringy locks whipped around her sweaty face and neck. The flower and delicate ribbon fell from her head in a swaying motion to the damp ground. Spit flew from her lips as she screamed her curse upward to the sky. The glowing orb raised from her cupped hands and hovered, spinning. Blue, red, and black flashed over its surface, swirling and shimmering like an oil spill.
Marceau’s chest heaved with panting breaths. The oxygen helped to clear the stars and blackness that threatened to overtake his vision but did little to clear the fog from his mind. He pleaded, “Mirela, you must stop.” Marceau tried to stand but swayed, unable to keep his balance. The dark trees spun in front of him while his hands waved in the air and smacked against the ground as he tried to right himself.
Mirela wound the hex tighter and tighter by repeating their names. Seraphina, Aedan, Finn.
Then her voice dropped to a whisper. This time, Marceau recognized a French word for binding. If she was binding the curse, it was almost complete. The tithe was coming. How could he stop her? Once a curse was bound and the price paid, the process was complete.
If she really were an L’Argent… would hurting her affect him? Marceau had to stop her, even if it did. He crawled closer. The light cast by the hex moved erratically as vertigo skewed his vision, yet he tried to aim himself toward the glow.
“Death. I call on you to accept my tithe. Take my bargain. Bind my curse to Seraphina. I offer you a corpse each time she tries to find peace, to have love. I’ve fed my power, my love, and my hate into this hex. My tithe will bring pain, but I will endure it. Do you accept, Death?”
Pain? Death doesn’t demand pain in exchange for his bargains.
“He will kill you, Mirela.” Marceau tried to reason. “Don’t call Death forth. You must stop this madness.”
Curses required a tithe in equal proportion to their power. “If Death accepts your bargain, you will die. Death shows no mercy.”
“No, not my death. I pay with my tithe. But when Seraphina touches one she loves, Death can take hold and demand a corpse. She will die.”
Mirela opened her clasped fists. In one, lay a silver keychain in the shape of a thunderbolt. In the other, a lock of red hair and a long chain on which a unique oval shape hung. As the necklace spun, flashes of blue stones shone in the moonlight.
She raised her hands on either side of the hex floating before her and snatched it instantly from the air. “I tithe and call forth Death.” Mirela pressed her hands into the magical sphere, the metal of both the keychain and the necklace glowed brightly as if being reforged by the hex’s power. The sapphires and diamonds sparkled bright, shooting prisms of blue light out into the darkness. A primal growl of pain rose in her chest, but she swallowed it back. The smell of burning flesh and singed hair flooded Marceau’s nostri
ls. Mirela’s eyes were defiant as her body shook violently. She pushed and compressed the magical sphere. Smaller and smaller, its glow intensified as it concentrated and lost mass.
Blood ran down her wrists in thick, red rivulets and pooled on her pink lace sleeves. She screamed, “Seraphina.”
Mirela hunched over her illuminated, blood-covered clasped hands. Falling to her knees, her head flew back as a haunting laugh bellowed from her small frame, a mixture of anguish, torment, and pure insanity.
Marceau reached her and grabbed her slick arm, wrenching it toward him, surprised by the strength in her corded muscles. Her hands did not separate. “No,” he yelled.
Her head snapped down and she locked Marceau with her gaze. The left eye was now the milky white shade he was accustomed to. She curled her lip and sneered. “Death has already found her. He took my bargain.”
She laughed and collapsed.
Dead.
Her mismatched eyes stared at Marceau, a grotesque smile of hatred frozen on her young face.
The buzzing melody of the swamp fell silent. The air shimmered beside Mirela’s body.
Death.
Death was coming in person to collect his new prize.
Her hands lay open. The lock of hair was ash, but the necklace and lightning key chain each had a faint glow in her ravaged palms. Marceau lurched forward for them, but they disintegrated into dust and blew away in the swamp’s musky breeze.
A force pulled at him, ripping him back to the present. Marceau closed his eyes as mind and body whipped away from the swamp.
Someone gripped his hand tightly.
“I love you,” Seraphina whispered and the grip on his hand weakened.
Marceau opened his eyes. His vision cleared. He was back in Nashville, in Seraphina’s room. Marceau peered up, trying to get his bearings, trying to figure out what happened in his absence.
Khat’s shoulders quaked from her sobs. Finn lay across her lap. His eyes open and unfocused, were ringed with dark purple.
Seraphina fell forward, motionless. Marceau forced himself to look down, to face the truth.