Never Just One Apocalypse

by Karen L Mead

“You’re just mad because your dad is doing to you what you do to everybody else.”

  “What, steal their witches?” Sam snapped back.

  “No, you make people feel useless. You feel useless right now, because you can’t help Cassie, even though that’s the only thing you want to do. Well that’s how most of us feel, all the damn time. Did you ever think of that? No, because that would require taking a break from the pity party for yourself you have going on in your head, 24/7.”

  Sam’s expression went from heated to total blankness.

  “I’m…going to be honest with you. I’m going to leave right now, because if I have to look at you any longer, I’m going to kill you.”

  When the door had closed behind Sam, Miri fixed Khalil with an inscrutable look.

  “What are you doing?”

  Khalil began making his way back to the counter; he still had a few pre-close chores to do.

  “Speaking truth to power; I’m a rebel.”

  “I’m going home too,” said Golding. “I have work to do, and er…it seems you two have things to discuss.”

  “No, we don’t,” said Khalil, pulling the last few treats out of the pastry case. He heard the click as the door closed behind Golding. When he looked up, Miri was staring at him from across the counter.

  “Seriously, what are you doing? Are you trying to leave, or are you trying to get yourself killed?”

  “I don’t see how it’s your business either way.”

  Khalil heard an odd sound, high-pitched sound. When he looked up, tears were streaming down Miri’s face. Khalil was so surprised, he actually dropped a stale croissant.

  “Mir?”

  “This is my fault. I did this to you,” she said, her voice breaking. “I betrayed you, and now you don’t care about anything.” She hugged herself tightly and looked down, still crying.

  Khalil was confused. In the months that he and Miri had been together, she’d told him all about what life in Quentin Rhodes’ entourage had been like; so many horrible things, things he still struggled not to think about when he lied in bed at night. But she had never cried, even when recalling things that made his skin crawl. If anything, she tended to make a joke out of everything. So seeing her cry was just odd, like his Miri was broken and he needed to find a replacement part so that she would work properly again.

  He put down the other pastries and put his hands at his waist, feeling like he needed to respond, somehow.

  “Look, uh, regardless of what happened with us, I…I’d done a pretty good job screwing up my life before I even met you. A really good job. So that’s not on you.”

  He scratched the back of his neck. “Although, I guess you didn’t help.”

  She started crying more intensely, and Khalil was at a loss. Part of him wanted to zip around the counter and hug her, part of him was still mad at her and took some sick kind of satisfaction in seeing her so upset. So he just stood there for a few moments, while she calmed herself down.

  “I have to close the store, Miri. We both have to go.”

  She ran her fingers through her brassy red hair, shaking her head. Her mascara had run, leaving two dark streaks running down her cheeks.

  “Before you do, before I go, let me just say this. I’ve practiced it in my head a million times and I’m probably still going to say it wrong, but if I don’t do it now, I’ll never do it. Please.”

  “Alright,” said Khalil softly. He didn’t think he had it in him to forgive her, but he would hear her out; it wasn’t too much to ask.

  She took a deep breath and then began.

  “Nyesha wasn’t the only one who got sick in New York. I was sick too, but I didn’t realize it for a while. All that sadistic stuff Quentin used to do, that stuff I told you about, that became normal for me; I forgot what decent people acted like. And I think I became kind of sick and broken myself, just to survive that. It’s only now, that I’ve been away from it for a while, that I see how messed up everything I was doing was.

  “I’m not saying that makes what I did okay, or that you should forgive me. I knew it was wrong, just kind of lying by omission like that, so I could have both of you. I knew what I was doing. But I was still broken, and the only thing that made me a little less broken, was you.”

  She was silent for a moment. Khalil didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but he was still surprised.

  “Uh…wow. It seems obvious when you put it like that, but I guess I never thought about it before. Quentin messing with your head, I mean.”

  She nodded gently, collecting her thoughts for the next thing she wanted to say.

  “I love Sam,” she said.

  Khalil exhaled sharply and narrowed his eyes. “Man, you couldn’t just quit while you were ahead?”

  She ignored him. “I love him, but it’s not the kind of love that humans have, you know? Well, you wouldn’t know, I guess. He owns me, but it’s okay because I want to be owned. But I own him too, in a way. We’re part of a larger system, like this beautiful, complicated machine that makes…I don’t know what it makes,” she said, smiling weakly. “But you, I don’t own. I wanted to own you, but it’s still not quite the same. Mostly I just wanted to spend time with you, because you’re funny, because I was so happy when we were together. It’s not magic, it’s not some metaphysical thing, it’s just, I loved being with you. And even if you hate me now, and I can’t blame you, because I’m selfish and a liar, I’ll always love you, because you’re the one who made me realize I still had that kind of feeling inside me. That I could just love someone for no reason.”

  She wiped the mascara off of her face with her fingers, and looked down. “I need to see Eugene. I don’t know what we’re going to do about Cassie, if there’s anything we can do, but Eugene will know something. Anyway, thank you for listening to me. I’m sorry for everything,” she said softly, and turned to walk out.

  Khalil just stood at the counter silently for a few minutes after she left, thinking. Eventually, he threw the rag he’d been using to wipe down the counter, hard, knocking over a couple of containers of sugar and cinnamon. Groaning softly, he went to clean up the new mess he’d just made.

  Chapter 29

  Somehow, while en route to Realm, Sammael ditched his pajamas, because he was wearing his usual black three-piece suit by the time they arrived. When he released Cassie she stumbled, dizzy. He caught her again so she wouldn’t fall.

  “There, there. You’ll get used to it eventually.”

  Cassie looked around. They were on a brick pathway, surrounded by waist-high hedges. The path led to a huge mansion, bone-white and tiered like a giant wedding cake. It was sunset, but the colors were wrong; a bluish sun touched the horizon, surrounded by a hazy green sky. As she got her bearings, Sammael walked toward the house, taking a key out of his back pocket.

  “You lock your house?” Cassie asked incredulously.

  “Doesn’t everybody?”

  She tried to shake the dizziness out of her head; that wasn’t what mattered right now.

  “Listen, you have to take me back. I have to take the SATs soon.”

  Sammael opened the door and frowned at her over his shoulder.

  “You just got dragged into Hell, and you’re still worried about college admissions? How very on-brand of you.” He stepped into the house.

  “No, you don’t understand!” Cassie said, scampering after him. “If I don’t take that test, the world is going to end!”

  He turned around and walked backwards, fixing her with an incredulous expression.

  “Wow, the Testing Industrial Complex has certainly got its hooks into you, hasn’t it?”

  “Please, listen to me, I have to—” Cassie began, then stopped. To explain to Sammael why she had to be on hand to take the SATs, she would have to tell him about seeing her future children. But she knew from experience that he didn’t handle information about time travel well, and her gut was telling her it wasn’t safe. If he knew the extent to which the timeline w
as being played with, by her family no less, there was no telling what he would do.

  Sammael carelessly threw his keys on an ornate side table, the gesture seeming oddly human; perhaps that was the whole point. “Hiding something from me, eh? It’s fine, you’ll tell me when the time comes. If I root around in your confused head trying to find it, I bet I’ll end up humming songs from boy bands for days.”

  “I do not listen to boy bands!” she snapped, then noticed where she was. When she had followed him into the house, she’d been too caught up in her own thoughts to notice the room. Now that she could spare a moment to look, she was slightly awed. Everything was huge, and marble; two glistening staircases led to a balcony on the second level, high above the ground floor. Above the balcony, a giant woven tapestry told tales of armored knights and unicorns; the fabric looked hundreds of years old, yet somehow perfectly clean. Only jet-black obsidian end tables and benches marred the white perfection of the hall.

  Seeing her gape, Sammael walked up next to her, smiling.

  “Admit it; I’m one hell of an interior decorator.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Cassie acknowledged.

  Sammael looked around at his handiwork, then his smile faltered.

  “Can you believe my wife doesn’t like it at all? Helen says it looks ‘sanctimonious.’ How could a room be sanctimonious? That doesn’t make any sense,” Sammael muttered, seemingly more to himself than to her. “Anyway, that’s not important now. I need to get you settled.”

  He clapped his hands. “Sylvia! Lisette! Get in here.”

  From a side door Cassie hadn’t noticed, two women rushed into the entranceway. One was a pale, thin slip of a girl wearing a high-waisted dress, like she had just stepped out of a Jane Austen novel; the other was a squat elderly lady, dressed elegantly as though for Sunday services. The older woman even had a shiny black hat with a sheet of delicate white lace attached.

  The younger one performed a curtsy; with her grace, she looked like she could be a ballerina. “Welcome home, Milord.”

  Sammael gently, playfully patted her on the head.

  “Oh please, Liz, I haven’t been gone ten minutes. Anyway, this is Cassie, a new witch of mine; you two will attend to her while she is our guest.”

  “Yes, Milord,” both women said in unison.

  Each woman took one of her arms, and Cassie struggled to be free; unfortunately, both women had a grip like an iron vise. They began to lead her toward one of the staircases.

  “What are you going to do with me?” she asked, trying to get a look at him over her shoulder.

  “Why, train you of course,” he called after her. “You can’t be running around half-trained when you can use black magic, sweetheart. Have a good night, we have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow.”

  She was going to respond, but the one called Lisette yanked her arm so hard that it hurt.

  “Ow!”

  “I’m sure Milord is quite tired from his trip; do not bother him with your babble,” she said in a tone of naked contempt.

  “Does he even get tired?” Cassie wondered aloud. She had stopped fighting and let the two women lead her up the grand staircase.

  The older woman laughed, a friendly sound. “Everyone gets tired, child. Even Lords of Hell. Now it is time for you both to rest.”

  After walking for a while on the second floor, as grandly adorned as the first, Cassie decided that they must be leading her to some kind of guest bedroom. She was surprised when Sylvia suddenly stopped. The older woman released her arm and stood in front of her, looking at her quizzically. Lisette kept tight hold of her other arm, as though she was really concerned Cassie would try to escape.

  “Whatever is that smell?” said Sylvia, wrinkling her nose.

  “She smells like a barn,” Lisette said with exaggerated disdain.

  Cassie was confused for a moment, then realized what they were smelling. “Oh, that’s Teddy. He’s a baby elephant. I guess you can still smell him on my clothes.”

  Sylvia raised an eyebrow, then made eye contact with Lisette. “To the bath with her, then.”

  The two women began dragging her in a different direction.

  “Can you let go of my arms?” Cassie asked. “It’s not like I’m going to run away. Where am I going to go anyway, outside into Hell?”

  Sylvia let go of her. “As long as you behave, child,” she said gravely.

  But Lisette held fast. “Milord says she’s a tricky one. That you can’t let this one out of your sight for even a moment!”

  Sylvia was unmoved. “Let her go. She’s not stupid, she won’t do anything foolish.”

  Lisette released her, but not without giving her a final push forward, and Cassie nearly fell over. She gave the thin woman a confused look.

  Holy crap, she hates me. What did I ever do to her? I just met her.

  They led her down another hallway to a bathroom, which was smaller and less finely adorned than Cassie would have guessed. An old-fashioned, claw-footed tub took up one corner, next to a mirrored wall; at the other end of the room was a simple white sink and a vanity, and another table housed bottles of soups and oils. While Lisette watched her like a hawk, Sylvia knelt down by the tub and turned on the faucet. The room filled with steam as the hot water accumulated.

  Lisette poked her in the shoulder, almost hard enough to bruise.

  “Take off your filthy rags,” she commanded.

  As Cassie took off her pajamas, she felt a sense of déjà vu and remembered the last time she had been forcibly bathed: by Aeka, at Bennet Marcus’ house.

  If I had a dime for every time I was forced to take a bath at a demon’s house…well, I’d have only twenty cents, but still. It’s like a pattern now.

  “What are you going to do with my clothes?”

  “Burn them.”

  “No!” Cassie hugged her pajamas to her chest. “Not the pants. I like my shark pants.”

  “Will you stop acting like a spoiled child, Lisette?” said Sylvia, taking a lace glove off her hand and dipping her fingers in the tub so she could test the water temperature. “It’s very unbecoming.”

  The wispy girl reddened, and her mouth tightened into a tiny little bow. Cassie almost laughed at her obvious fury.

  “You watch your tone! You know full well I’m older than you, you spiteful chit!”

  Sylvia looked up, clearly unimpressed. “Yes, and so much maturity to show for it.”

  Sylvia beckoned for Cassie to come over to the tub, which Cassie did.

  “You’ll have to forgive Liz, my child. She’s just jealous because she’s been in love with Milord for centuries, and can’t abide another woman getting any attention from him.”

  Naked, Cassie stepped into the tub, which was the perfect temperature; behind her, she could hear Lisette further losing her composure.

  “It is not that! I simply bristle at being asked to wait on a mistress while the Lady of the house is away! The sheer gall of that man.”

  Cassie sat down in the tub, feeling the warm water caress her skin. Despite where she was, her general affinity toward water still applied, and just the feeling of being submerged was calming. Despite herself, she was starting to enjoy this.

  “There have been no mistresses, not since Lord Sammael wed Lady Helen. Which you, of all people, should know,” Sylvia said. “Hand me the primrose soap.”

  Lizette practically stomped over to the table.

  “Don’t be blind! You’ve seen the way he looks at this…this buxom harlot!” she said as she handed the other woman a bar of Ivory soap.

  “Hey!” Cassie yelped. She was kind of used to being insulted at this point, but being called a harlot was crossing a line. “For your information, I don’t want him! And it’s not my fault I have boobs and you don’t!”

  Lisette looked utterly stunned by her rudeness. Before she could respond, Sylvia interjected. “Get out of here, Liz. Before you forget yourself.”

  “I don’t take direction from you.” />
  “Then pull yourself together. You are letting a child who hasn’t even lived for a quarter-century get the better of you.”

  Lisette looked incensed for a moment, then took a deep breath and calmed herself.

  “Here, you are doing it all wrong,” she said finally, kneeling beside the tub. “You have to scrub hard to get rid of that farm animal odor.”

  Cassie moved to the other side of the tub, wary. “If you let her do it, she’s going to rub my skin off.”

  “I most certainly will not,” the girl said, sniffing. “Let us get you all clean and fresh so you can get to bed, Miss Cassie. It must be late for you.”

  Tentatively, Cassie moved back to the center of the tub and allowed Lisette to touch her. This time, the girl’s touch was firm, but careful. Sylvia applied some shampoo to her hair and began massaging her scalp, and Cassie gave a little involuntary sigh of pleasure.

  Okay, if I have to be kidnapped by Sammael, I have to admit, things could be going a lot worse—

  Then she glanced at her reflection in the ceiling-high mirror, and screamed for a while. The two women pulled back, letting her recoil from them.

  In the mirror, while she herself looked normal, her two attendants looked like corpses in various states of decay. Sylvia’s fine hat rested atop a head that was almost purely a skull, only a few strips of flesh clinging here and there; her body, while still fleshy, was covered with rot wherever her skin was visible. Lisette was nothing more than a discolored skeleton, her delicate white dress suspended over her brittle, broken rib cage. One clavicle was discolored and broken.

  After Cassie had ceased screaming and gasped for breath, Lisette sighed.

  “I do wish Milord would remove these mirrors,” she said matter-of-factly.

  Syliva primly adjusted her hat, like she wasn’t really a stinking cadaver under her fine clothes. “As do I. But I know why he doesn’t; we must always remember our place.”

  “As if I could forget,” Lisette said softly.

  “Come, child,” said Sylvia, extending a hand to where Cassie was huddled in the far corner of the tub. “Let us finish your bath. You still have soap in your hair.”