They reached the ground floor and were heading down the next hall, but froze when Sir Kipling came galloping back from his scouting, followed closely by the pixie. Kip reported to Lily while Pip filled him in. The news sent fear shooting through him, and he grabbed Lily’s arm, fighting panic. “Roger’s here—he knows where we are. Save yourself, before it’s too late!”
She glared ice-coated daggers of wrath up at him, and a part of him actually felt sorry for Roger should the unfortunate witch be so foolish as to cross his hornet’s nest of a friend.
“I. Am. Not. Leaving. You,” she gritted out, accentuating each word with a furious jab in the direction of his chest—though she stopped short of physically poking him. He was grateful she remembered his injuries, as that lethal-looking finger could have probably broken a rib or two all on its own. “Now, for the last time, shut your useless mouth and keep walking.”
He did as he was told, forcing his shaking legs to move faster as he and Lily broke into a shuffling trot. They made it out of the hall and onto the main factory floor, but then skidded to a halt, their path blocked by the three remaining witches and their demon slaves, all outlined by a faint red glow. In front stood Roger, an amused expression on his face.
“My, my, my, what do we have here? This is quite the impressive young lady, Sebastian. You must introduce us.” A wicked glint shone in the man’s mismatched eyes as his gaze swept over Lily, examining her from head to toe.
Sebastian let loose a string of curses, flinging all the foul and insulting names he could think of at the man he hated with every fiber of his being. But his voice soon broke again and his body started to tremble, the oppressive evil of his enemy’s presence bringing horrible memories to the surface. He looked down, barely avoiding the witch’s gaze.
“Look away, Lil,” he whispered to his friend, hoping desperately she was smart enough to follow his advice. He would sell his life dearly for her, would give it up without a thought. What terrified him was not the idea of death, but that Roger would gain control again, and he would be helpless to stop whatever came next.
“Tut, tut, Sebastian,” Roger said, still amused. “Using uncouth language in front of a lady? It is not proper, not at all. You ought to be punished. And you shall be, in a moment. But first things first.” His voice changed as he addressed Lily, becoming soft and sibilant. “You must be Miss Lily Singer. Or is it Lilith LeFay? A great pleasure, I am sure. I have heard all about you, and I am very curiousss. Very curiousss, indeed. Perhapsss we can talk in a more comfortable sssetting. Come, my dear. I very much want to know you better. I think we shall become quite…closssse.”
“Over my dead body!” Sebastian burst out. Rage like he’d never felt before exploded in his heart and he pushed Lily behind him, swaying with dizziness and pain, but facing Roger squarely. “If you so much as touch her I’ll kill you myself.”
“My, my! Ssso he was right. You are in love. How disssgustingly amusing.”
“Shut it!” Sebastian shouted, fists clenching. His whole body was trembling with adrenaline fueled rage, giving him strength that he knew would not last long. Part of him wondered who had been talking about him—Anton?—but there was no time to consider it. Even now he could feel a trickle of blood oozing down his chest from reopened wounds.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Lily said, stepping around his swaying form. If she had been taken aback by Roger’s words, it didn’t show in her iron-hard expression. Sir Kipling crouched at her feet, hissing as his tail whipped back and forth. “Roger Darthe, call off your demons and leave us in peace or you will regret it. You have my word.”
“Sssuch big words for sssuch a little thing. I ssshall enjoy hearing more from those sssoft lips of yours after you learn your place and obey me!” Roger’s eyes blazed red as he stepped forward, all his energy focused on Lily. Sebastian felt power rolling off of the witch, and his mind stuttered in fear, knowing what came next.
But Lily simply rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. Get a life.”
As Sebastian gaped in astonishment, Lily shouted a command at Kip. The cat sprang to the attack, taking a running leap at the nearest witch with his claws slashing in a windmill of death as Pip dove at the first demon. Lily’s spell took out the next witch before the woman could give an order to her demon, and the third witch—the youngest, barely out of his teens—did the only smart thing and turned to run. The demon he’d summoned was not so timid. Sensing a chance for blood, it attacked, leaping at Lily with jaws open wide.
Sebastian lurched forward on instinct, but his limbs were too heavy, his muscles too weak to do anything to help his friend. If only he still had his staff. He screamed a hoarse warning just as the demon ran headfirst into a brilliant white shield that flashed to life around Lily. The creature fell to the floor, neck broken.
The second demon suffered a similar fate, helped along by more of Lily’s spells. The third, bleeding from Pip’s attacks and obviously the smallest of the three, took off in the same direction as the fleeing witch, its master too busy trying to peel a crazed cat off his bloody face to stop it.
Roger, who had stepped back out of the fray, stood silently and watched with a calculating gaze, obviously content to let his acolytes and their demon minions take the punishment.
Lily put the bloodied witch out of his misery with a spell that knocked him flat onto his back, Sir Kipling jumping free just as the unfortunate man flopped to the floor. The cat turned his attention to Roger now, hissing and spitting as he crept closer in a low crouch. Pip came to hover over Sebastian, obviously afraid to engage Roger. Sebastian didn’t blame her.
“I said, let us leave in peace or you will regret it,” Lily repeated, breathing hard, but speaking calmly.
This time, Roger ignored her. His red eyes found Sebastian, and Sebastian remembered too late to look away. This was it. That bastard would use him against Lily somehow, and he would be helpless to stop himself. But to his complete surprise, he did not feel the familiar sickening presence come over him to trap his mind in its iron grip.
“Take your handsss and put them around your neck, Sssebastian,” Roger ordered, his cheek twitching with suppressed rage.
A confused but jubilant feeling rushed through Sebastian’s body and he gleefully told Roger to go stick his hands somewhere extremely inappropriate. Somehow Roger’s gaze had no effect on him, though he hadn’t the faintest idea why.
At Sebastian’s defiance, the witch’s face morphed into a mask of rage. In fact, his whole body seemed to be transforming. He was a solidly built man, but now his body elongated and his form became taller, more slender. His face was no longer square and handsome, but narrow and hauntingly perfect, while his pale skin darkened to a black so deep that it seemed to swallow what little light there was, leaving him in a pool of shadow.
Icy dread froze Sebastian to the spot.
“A pleasure to meet again, Sebastian, and in the flesh, no less,” the new version of Roger said, his charming smile belied by the sadistic glint in his glowing red eyes. “A pity what happened to your poor little girlfriend all those years ago. I was quite looking forward to torturing her for a millennia or two, until you ruined my fun.”
“Sebastian, what is he talking about?” Lily muttered, moving to stand beside him, hands raised and ready to fight.
“Don’t listen. Ignore anything he says. You can’t trust him.”
“Trust?” The man—the demon—laughed. Bile rose in Sebastian’s throat, not only at the terrible sound, but at the memory of a similar dark night ten years ago. “I only ever told you the truth, Sebastian. It is you who cannot be trusted. I wonder what she would say if she knew you as I do.”
“What does he mean? Sebastian, tell me what’s going on!”
Lily’s worried voice burrowed into the haze of fear paralyzing him, and he took a deep breath to try and steady himself. He had expected to be more…helpless. He couldn’t fathom why, without any sort of protective symbols around him, the demon hadn’t already
possessed his mind just as it had possessed her. A strangled bark of laughter bubbled up from his throat, half hysterical. His ribs seared in pain at the movement and he swayed, fighting to stay on his feet, euphoric despite the pain. He felt nothing in his mind except his own fear. And fear, he could deal with. “It’s nothing, Lily. Something that happened a long, long time ago. But it doesn’t matter now, and we’re leaving. Come on.”
Surprise flashed across the demon’s face, but was quickly replaced by a lazy smile that was miles from reaching his eyes. He began to pace forward slowly, unhurried, like a lion stalking its prey. “Not so hasty, Sebastian. We have not even begun to play, and I have so missed our little games. You have been that traitorous whore’s pet for so long, it is only fair that I should get an equal share.” With an evil chuckle, the demon raised his arms, and swirling blackness oozed out of the ground, rising to surround them. At the same time, the floor at their feet began to writhe, the very concrete teeming with grasping tendrils of darkness trying to root them to the spot.
“You’ve met this thing before, right? So what do we do?” Lily demanded, then yelped as something touched her foot. Sir Kipling leapt clear, hissing and batting at the tendrils that slithered his way.
“If you have any of that white light left in you, Lil, use it now. We have to get out of here before it gets any worse.”
“I wish I could. I—I don’t really know how to control it, it just sort of happens when I need it to.”
As they drew closer, back to back in a sea of pulsing evil, a sudden and terrible thought came into Sebastian’s mind. He immediately hated himself for it, yet whatever rational part of him remained knew he had no choice. He recognized this demon from his youth, and knew they were on the verge of a horrible death, white light or no. Lily had to act now, or they were both done for.
So he turned and pushed her. Hard.
With a cry of surprise, she lurched forward and fell into the arms of the rising tendrils of blackness. They writhed in a frenzy, twisting to ensnare her limbs as she screamed and thrashed. Sebastian choked at the sight, his heart constricting in terror. What had he done?
Then power burst from her in an explosion of light that drove him to his hands and knees in pain, leaving him blind and dazed. There was a deep ringing sound, like a giant bell had been struck, then a horrifying scream echoed through the cavernous space, rising to a terrible pitch before suddenly cutting off. Sebastian heard running feet, though the sound swiftly drew away and faded into the distance. As the spots in his vision started to clear he groped about, looking for Lily.
He found her lying on the ground, unconscious but, as far as he could tell, unhurt, and a meow beside his ankles told him Sir Kipling had survived unscathed as well. Pip gave him a status report with a series of rapid squeaks, informing him that Roger had run off and escaped through the offices at the front.
Sebastian forced his battered, bleeding body to move, ignoring the stabbing pain in his side. He tried to lift Lily off the ground, but his legs gave out and he resorted to dragging her, tug by painful tug as he followed the sound of Kip’s meows, his vision still not clear enough to see anything in the darkness.
“Kip, I really hope Lily parked nearby,” he gasped. “I don’t know how far I can drag her.”
The cat’s annoyed huff sounded close by, and then Sebastian heard a faint licking sound. Within moments, Lily was awake and spluttering.
“Really, Sir Kipling? On the lips? I know where that tongue of yours has been, and I do not appreciate it anywhere near my mouth.”
Sebastian had no idea what the cat’s meowed reply meant—not that it mattered. He was fading fast, the adrenaline that had kept him on his feet draining away by the second. Every muscle in his body burned and his entire being begged to pass out.
Lily’s slender arms wrapped around him again and tugged him forward. “Almost there, Sebastian. Don’t quit on me now.” Even with her help, he almost didn’t make it. It was only the thought of lying down in her car, safe, that kept him going. When he finally collapsed into the back seat, her gentle touch and familiar scent were the last things he remembered before finally giving in to unconsciousness.
Episode 10
Of Which Reason Knows Nothing
1
The Things We Don't Say
Lily was beyond exhausted. The anger-fueled determination that had gotten her through their harrowing escape had disappeared long ago, and she was left drained and anxious. It was Sunday morning, a day and a half since she had driven at breakneck speeds from south Atlanta to the nearest hospital, praying Sebastian wouldn’t stop breathing before she got there. Then she had to endure hours of sleepless worry, pacing the waiting room before she was finally allowed to see him, though only after claiming to be his fiancée. The thought of having to explain that to Sebastian made a blush creep into her pale cheeks, and she glanced at him where he lay in his hospital bed, glad for a moment he was still unconscious.
She sat in a chair by the window, back aching and eyes burning from weariness and unshed tears. Her hair was a mess, her makeup two days old and smudged, and her face probably looked like death warmed over. In fact, the only thing that wasn’t a complete wreck were her clothes. Despite everything, they still looked as clean and wrinkle free as when she’d put them on—one of the perks of a custom outfit made by a wizard clothier.
Her insides, however, had not been so lucky. The past two days had been a rollercoaster of emotion, from hurt and anger to fear, longing, and a painfully tight feeling in her chest that swelled until she could barely breathe every time she looked at Sebastian. Was it love? She didn’t know. Everything she thought she knew about love—that heady zing of desire romance novels talked about—was as far from how she felt about Sebastian as possible. Granted, there had been a few zings here and there during the time she’d known him. But all she felt now was a confused mix of simmering hurt and desperate longing for him to wake up, wrap her in his arms, and tell her everything was going to be all right.
Though Lily had tried to insist her mentor stay home and rest, Madam Barrington had come to visit on Saturday. Lily had given her a brief version of events, expecting a reprimand for going off on her own to rescue Sebastian. But the elderly wizard had simply nodded, eyes on Sebastian’s still form, face as pale and grave as Lily had ever seen it. After doing a quick but thorough check to make sure her great-grandnephew had suffered no magical maladies, she had taken her leave, saying they would speak more once Sebastian was well enough to be moved to her house to recover.
He was in a coma, the doctors said. Or, at least, that was their best guess. Physically he was on the mend, his cuts stitched and his bruised ribs bandaged. The nurses thought it was a miracle he had no broken bones, based on the depth and severity of the bruising. It was as if he had been painstakingly tortured to cause maximum pain without any true internal damage. They had shaken their heads in wonder, but assured Lily that he would heal up just fine. The coma was most likely due to a minor concussion or his body simply shutting down to deal with the damage. They said he should wake up none the worse for wear.
Lily wasn’t so sure. She had seen the haunted terror in his eyes as he’d hung, chained to the wall by bands of pure demonic power. And fear was so unlike him. What had Roger—or the creature inside him—done to her friend?
Her boyfriend.
It still felt strange to think of him that way. Lily examined his face, calm in sleep if not exactly peaceful, and wondered if there was something wrong with her. Or was this one of those times she should listen to her instincts? It was all so confusing and she didn’t know what to do.
A yawning sound drew her gaze to the bedside chair where Sir Kipling had curled up for a nap, safely out of sight of the door. Now he stared at her through heavily lidded eyes, one ear swiveling to monitor the steady beep of Sebastian’s vital signs. Finding nothing amiss, the ear swiveled back and he yawned again, showing pink tongue and bone-white, needle-sharp teeth.
&n
bsp; “For a human that puts such importance on maintaining a presentable appearance, you seem stubbornly oblivious to the restorative powers of sleep.” Opinion given, he craned his neck and began grooming his back.
Lily thought about retorting, but in the end just stared listlessly, too drained to even be upset. This, apparently, was not what her cat had been expecting, because he paused his ministrations and flicked his ears toward her.
“No biting comeback? Are you sure you are quite well?”
She shrugged. It was easier than trying to explain what was going on in her head. And her heart.
Sir Kipling rose with a lazy stretch, then jumped to the floor, twining his way through chair legs until he reached her. One ear cocked, he checked for footsteps in the hall before leaping gracefully to her lap, curling up, and beginning to purr.
“Everything will work out in the end, you know. Sebastian will get better, we will discover what the witches are up to and stop them, and you two will eventually get over yourselves and admit you love each other.”
“Sir Kipling!” Lily straightened and glared down at him, tempted to dump his smug little kitty butt on the floor for his presumption. “Have you been watching reality TV again? I told you nothing on there is remotely like real life, so don’t go getting ideas from it.”
“No, as a matter of fact, I have not. You and that boy are as entertaining—and ridiculous—as the finest late-night soap operas. I hardly need the television to stay entertained.”
“Well I—I—”
“Go ahead, be indignant. Deny it. But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m right and you know it.”
Lily hesitated. When no words came to her, she finally slumped into the chair before leaning her head back and closing her eyes to let out a defeated moan. “What do I do, Kip? Nothing makes any sense. He’s a mess, a rogue, a scoundrel. I shouldn’t trust him, but I do. And he drives me up the wall. Half the time I can’t stand him. But…but I want him—I mean, I want to be with him. Well, not at his apartment, of course, because it’s a pigsty, but…well… ugh!” she finished, flinging an arm across her eyes as if she could hide from the extreme inconvenience of having feelings.
Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus Betrayal Page 16