Mentally wincing, I shrugged my shoulders. “Fine.”
“Is that going to be your stock answer?”
“You think I’m going to complain when Ca—” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
“I know. It’s killing me too. But we should focus on the next thing in front of us. You think you can lure some magic out of Tyler fast enough for him to be of use?”
“Depends on the what type of tactics you want to use.”
“What do you mean?” He shot me a sideways look.
“Miguel, or Dr. Antos, used fear and torture to challenge us. I think that’s how he got us ready so fast.”
“These are the details I don’t want to know, right?”
“Yes. I couldn’t believe how well Camille held up. For someone with such an empathetic heart, she was a rock.”
“Thanks for that. Seems that you’re quite impressed with her.” His eyes bore into mine.
I stretched my shoulders and straightened my spine. “I would go to the ends of the earth for her. And not just because I am her herald.”
“I guessed as much. I don’t need to know any of the particulars about that relationship either.”
My face flamed, and I cleared my throat remembering our first kiss. “I wasn’t going to share them.”
“You’re not as ironclad as you seem.” He slapped his leg, stood, and crossed the aisle to sit beside Tyler.
It was a large jet, and our party was seated four in a row. Janine didn’t want to be anywhere near her husband, so I got stuck between her and Tyler. He’d read Camille’s accounts of her visions, and pestered me with questions for the first hour of the flight.
As the span of miles between Sardinia and me shortened, my chest began to lighten. With the strain of labored breathing gone, I relaxed and dozed in my seat. I woke to see the sun rising and marveled at how long it’d been since I’d seen the star. Landing, we sunk below the cloud bank again, and the landscape took on the gray hue I’d grown accustomed to.
Making our way to another of Grady’s safe houses, we settled in our rooms. Grady procured some bread and meat from a market down the street. After the meal, I showered and climbed in bed, exhausted from the three days of travel.
When I woke, it was dark. Hearing an additional voice, I pulled my shirt over my head and made my way downstairs. With a curved spine, hunched shoulders, and gray thinning hair, the woman sitting across from Grady conjured the image of the witch from the tale of Hansel and Gretel. I expected to see a crooked nose and haggled teeth when she turned to face me, but her blue eyes radiated warmth.
“Child.” She started to stand, and I reached out to support her arm. Her skin felt as smooth as silk and thin as a tissue.
“I’m a lot hardier than I look.” Returning to her seat, she motioned for me to sit beside her.
“I’m Helene.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“We were discussing payment.” Grady updated me.
“You should have woken me.” I turned to face the woman, wondering if I should share my name or not.
“It’s okay, son. I understand you don’t know who to trust.”
Had she read my mind? “What do you want?”
“One year?” Grady asked.
“Ten years.” Her eyes cut to me.
Remembering what Grady told me I matched her stare. “How are the years taken?”
“Much in the same way I remove the marks.”
“I want two tethers removed a day. And I’ll pay you whatever you want.”
“You won’t survive.” She shook her head.
“I will survive. I don’t have time to spend ten days here. Either five days or we’ll find someone else.” I figured she valued her time alive above anything else. Why else would she ask for that payment? If I were going to live nine hundred years, what were ten to me? Perhaps I wouldn’t feel that way when I neared a millennia, but I prayed a life well lived meant I would be content.
“I’m guessing Grady knows several healers capable of the task.” She stared past me, and I waited. Finally, her mouth moved. “I will do it.”
“So, you can start now?” It’d been eighty hours since I’d left Camille, and I didn’t want any time wasted. I wouldn’t rest, not well, until she was safe.
“I can’t make it up the stairs. You’ll have to bring a cot down here.”
Grady called over his shoulder. “Tyler, help Jude bring a bed down.”
Tyler followed me upstairs, where we surveyed the choices. We picked the lightest one and carried it into the kitchen as Helene instructed, dodging the corners as we went. Janine found sheets and blankets. I lay down on the bed, unsure of what was to come next. Sitting beside me, Helene opened her bag and covered the stool in front of her with a cloth. Then she laid out various instruments. One looked like a small hook, another formed the shape of a cross, and another resembled an empty spool of string. Last, she took out a metal box etched with symbols like the ones branded on my arm.
When she turned to me, I took a deep breath.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
“Yes,” I told her with all the resolve I could muster. Glancing at Janine, Tyler, and Grady gathered in the adjoining space, I focused on Helene.
She explained the process, and I nodded at the appropriate places, praying she knew what she was doing. Tapping on one of the symbols of the box, the symbol popped up from the surface. Pulling it from the container, she pressed it to the matching symbol on my arm. Ice-cold, the metal seared my skin, and I clenched my jaw to keep from yelling. Tugging the symbol from my wrist, she lifted it away from my arm. Stuck to the metal, the skin stretched. As my skin snapped away from the metal face, a beam of blue light appeared between the tool and my arm.
“It’s working. I have hold of the first tether. Brace yourself.”
Clenching the edge of the bed, I waited for the next step of the process. As she put more distance between the metal anchor and my wrist, the blue beam stretched into a blue strand of light. My amazement was only rivaled by the shock that shot up my arm to my chest. You would have thought someone had a rope around my heart and was ripping it from between my ribs. Sweat formed on my skin, and the immediate cooling made me shiver.
“Keep him dry and warm,” Helene ordered. Janine wiped my brow and chest and covered me with a heavy quilt.
Next, Helene used the hook to snag the blue-stranded tether. She picked up the spool, fed the strand into the middle, and started to wind part of it around the base. All the while, my chest cavity heaved with waves of pain. Spots of light formed in my vision, and the room dimmed around me. A ringing sound grew in my ears.
“Okay.” Helene stopped pulling and tied the tether around the cross-like tool and laid it atop the brand. “That’s enough for now.”
As the room brightened, I lifted my head to object. Helene pushed my shoulder to the mattress. “Rest for a bit, and we’ll start again.” She stood and turned to Janine. “Get him some broth.”
Janine scooped some liquid from a large pan on the stove into a bowl and crossed to me. Fitting another pillow under my head, she lifted a spoon of the hot mixture to my mouth.
“Don’t worry. Nothing processed.”
“Thank you.” My throat felt raw and dry, and the words were barely audible.
The warm liquid soothed my vocal chords and warmed my body. After I’d ingested half the contents of the bowl, I motioned to Helene. “I’m ready.”
“You are a stubborn child,” she said. But she hobbled back to my side and returned to the task of pulling the tether from my body.
And so, the hours passed through the night, with me on the edge of consciousness and Janine hydrating and nourishing me. I woke to see light gray clouds in the sky beyond the window.
“Is it ever sunny here?” I looked around the room to see if anyone was awake.
At the table, Helene looked to the window and chuckled. “Wait till February, maybe March.”
I held my wrist up, examining it. “Did
it work? Is that one out?” The mark she’d started with was no longer black but looked like a scar on my skin.
“It did. But I should warn you. The first one is the easiest, they get harder and harder to extract.”
“And I’ll get tougher and tougher. Start on the next one.” I held my wrist out to her as she rose from her chair.
Shuffling to my side, Helene sat down beside me and spread her tools as she’d done the day before. I steeled myself for the anchor’s singe and the ripping of the tether from my heart muscle. She repeated the same steps, and I closed my eyes and pictured a sunny beach, vacant save for Camille and me. After a while I heard commotion and lifted my head to see Janine, Grady, and Tyler sitting at the table. As the fever ratcheted up, Janine took up her post as nurse, while Grady worked at awakening Tyler’s magic.
My body heated and cooled with each tug on the tether. My brain swam in the delirium of pain, sometimes conscious, sometimes not. The faces swirled around me as Helene pulled on the anchor and Janine placed cool cloths on my head. Grady’s and Tyler’s forms hung in the periphery of my vision, offering me sparks of amusement from time to time.
The third evening, as Helene connected with the fifth tether, I balled my fist as the cold shot through me like a dagger. She pulled the tether and hooked it around the spool as she’d done with the previous four while I gritted my teeth in agony. As Tyler’s image drifted in and out of my consciousness, I realized he’d been staring at the same bowl for hours. Sending a blast of energy his way, I knocked the chair from under him.
“What was that?” Tyler jumped to his feet.
Grady offered him a steadying hand, and as Helene tugged at the tether, I repeated the action.
Tyler’s legs flew up, and he landed on his butt again. Quicker than a wink Tyler was up and charging towards me. “What is your problem?”
“Stand down.” Grady inserted his arm between Tyler and me.
“Jude?” Janine’s eyes landed on mine.
Even through the haze of the pain, I remembered my goal. Camille was the only thing that mattered. “We don’t have time to coddle him. He either can help or he can’t.”
Grady let his arm drop. “You said your mentor had a different approach to training.”
“Yes, an effective one.” I gripped my side as Helene stretched the cord of light from my wrist.
Grady shook his head. “That’s not how it’s supposed to be. He may not even have the ability.”
“I can help as a regular human. I’m strong,” Tyler insisted.
“But you could help more if you were a witch.” I sent a surge to Grady, who flailed backwards, catching himself with the kitchen table.
Janine scrambled to Grady’s side. “Jude, stop.”
Even though I knew Camille wouldn’t approve either, I didn’t stop my ambush. As soon as Grady was up, I hit him again, time after time. I guessed he must have been on board with my approach because he didn’t fight back. Tyler’s face grew more tense with each assault, and his hands formed fists at his side.
Minutes turned to hours, and I grew weak. I rested longer between hits on Grady. As the timing of the blasts grew more erratic, Tyler’s face grew redder and redder with rage. With nothing else to do, he paced and sat and stood and paced again.
Just on the edge of unconsciousness, I saw Grady stand and walk to me. Summoning every bit of power I had left, I sent a pulse of energy towards him, pinning him to the wall across the room.
“Why are you still doing this? Witchcraft is about balance and healing,” Grady belted at me.
“He’s your child. Help him awaken his magic.” I’d grown more and more frustrated as Grady set small challenge after small challenge in front of his son.
“I don’t know how.” Grady wiggled his fingers, trying to loosen the hold of my magic on his body.
“At least fight me. You need to be strengthening your magic too.”
“I’m from the house of Raphael. We are healers. I only started hunting relics to help Camille.”
“That’s bullshit. Camille could do every challenge they put in front of her.”
“She is a child of light.”
“I’m not buying it. You had to have had a mentor.”
Grady’s face contorted, and his eyes panned to the ceiling.
Movement from the side of the room caught my eye, and Tyler’s face appeared in front of me. “That’s enough!” he bellowed. The force of his words and the wave of magic that emanated with them struck me, and the room went dark.
When I woke, white fog hung heavy outside the pane of glass opposite my bed.
“You’re awake.” Janine replaced the warm cloth on my forehead with a cool one.
“Did she get the fifth tether out?” I strained to lift my arm, but it was dead weight beyond my shoulder.
“Yes.”
“Does everyone hate me?” I glanced around the room.
“Tyler exhausted himself practicing magic. Grady sulked the whole night. Everyone is sleeping now.” A yawn escaped her lips as she crossed the space to the sink and filled the bowl with water.
“Were you up all night?”
“I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Thank you.” I pushed up on my elbows. “I probably would’ve been fine.”
“Grady told me about your time in the castle with Camille. She would have stayed with you. I don’t want to let her down.” A tear ran down her cheek, and she swiped it away.
Tired from the small strain of bearing the weight of my torso, I reclined back to the cot. “I am going to do everything I can to get her out of there as soon as I get this thing off me.”
“I know you will.” She sat on the stool in front of me.
I looked at the ceiling. “So, I’m guessing Grady lost his parents before they could train him?”
She turned to face me. “The story he always told was that they were attacked by burglars in their home.”
“I had no idea my parents were witches.” Grady’s voice came from the doorway. “I’d never seen them practice magic. I was fourteen when they came to our house.”
Janine spun to face him. “Who came?”
“Vampires.” His mouth formed a sneer. Seeing his face contort as he said the word, I was glad I’d kept my secret to myself.
“Vampires? When was this?” Janine’s eyes filled with tears.
“France, the middle ages, I’m not sure exactly what year. Pagans were being burned alive, and the vampires blamed the witches for exposing them.”
“How did vampires know you were witches?”
“We smell different.” Grady passed in front of her and sat at the table.
“When were you going to tell me you were seven hundred years old?”
Hating witnessing the private conversation, I closed my eyes, faking falling back into a slumber.
Grady continued the story in whispers to Janine. Live had been the last word Grady’s father had spoken. Grief and rage awakened Grady’s powers. “I thought I killed the vampires who attacked my parents. Later I learned I’d only stunned them, and they’d probably healed. I searched the countryside till I found witches to take me in. The family trained me, and I joined their coven. I didn’t think I’d ever fall in love, marry. I didn’t want children, till I met you.”
“You could’ve told me,” Janine said. I heard her swing around on the stool and stand. I imagined her reaching out to touch him.
I heard shuffled steps on the floor and a chair scrape across the wood, and thought Janine must be sitting beside Grady. He cleared his throat. “I thought Camille and Tyler would be safe. That they could live normal lives. I guess destiny found them.”
More chair legs grazed the floor. “Camille wants to embrace who she is. She chose to go to Sardinia.”
“Young people tend to believe they’re invincible. That nothing will happen to them. Michael’s coven is dangerous. She has no idea what she’s gotten herself into.”
“Why would you say
such a thing?” Janine’s voice rose an octave. “I’m barely keeping my head above water.”
“Shh.” I imagined Grady grabbing her arm. “You said you wanted to know,” he whispered.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs. “Wanted to know what?” Tyler’s voice floated down from above.
“Shh.” Janine shushed him. “Jude is sleeping.”
Tyler passed my cot, and I heard him take a seat. “Like I care about Jude.”
“Jude rescued your sister and me,” Grady said.
“But she’s still there.”
“Jude will do anything to get Camille out.” Grady talked in whispers, reviewing everything his research had uncovered. The witches believed the sword would unbind them from the curse of not being able to settle for more than a few years. They also believed their souls would be freed from eternal purgatory. But the sword held power that could be wielded by whoever possessed it. He could only guess at what Michael’s coven would use it for.
“They practice dark magic. As you can tell.” I imagined Grady motioned to me.
“What about the vampires. What do they think the prophecy will free them from? Aren’t they immortal already?” Tyler asked.
“Vampires aren’t immortal. They evolved like humans did. They are fast, strong, and heal quickly. Their lifespans tend to be between six hundred and nine hundred years. If Biblical history is to be believed, they don’t have souls. This life is all they have.”
Even though I’d read in Camille’s account of her visions that vampires were soulless creatures, hearing it out loud felt different. I wondered if a half-vampire, half-human creature like my mom had a soul. Was she so damaged because she lacked a spirit?
“So, vampires want to be granted souls?” Janine asked.
“Or be given immortality.” Tyler’s voice took on a hard tone. Perhaps Grady had already told Tyler about his parents, or maybe he’d overheard earlier.
“That is why there’s a trinity. The three beings must agree. They decide for all the races. It has never been achieved. The children of light have never been united. They are born only at the turn of a millenia on the summer solstice.”
“I have a solstice birthday too. Am I related to this?” Tyler asked.
The Kingdom Journals Complete Series Box Set Page 53