by Karen L Mead
Despite himself, he actually liked the fairy. Her help had been critically important against Azazel, and while her disappearing acts were annoying, she was fairly low-maintenance for someone he had to protect. She also had dealt fairly graciously with the vampires despite her dislike of them—or at least, a lot more graciously than he surmised most of her kind would have. However, just because he liked her, that was not the same thing as trust. He’d been carrying around the leaves ever since Dot had made the tree, anticipating that they might be somehow useful if she ever betrayed him.
He held the leaves before him and tried to synchronize his whole being to them, matching the magic that animated them. It took a while, and for a moment he thought he was getting nowhere at all, but eventually, the vision of the roots of a large tree became superimposed over his view of the converted warehouse in front of him. Vladmira was helping him, telling him useful non-verbal things about forests and trees that he never would have intuitively known.
She really was a good familiar. In some ways, she was better than Cassie….
You’re just realizing that now?
When the tree had reached about 20 percent opacity, Sam shooed Vladmira off his arm. “Thanks, little one. Why don’t you go now, I have to kill that fairy and I don’t want you caught in the crossfire.”
Remember your promise, she uttered into his mind with no small amount of sass, then flew off. Sam couldn’t stop himself from looking up at her in wonder for a moment before he began climbing the tree. Using his vampire-augmented strength, he dug into the bark of the tree, making his own hand- and footholds rather than looking for natural ones. Touching the tree made it palpable, and after he had climbed up a few stories, he was completely in the world of the Faewilde.
When he pulled up to a branch big enough for him to stand on, he saw Dorothy directing Khalil, who was standing stock-still with the Rod in his hand. At Sam’s entrance into the canopy, Khalil turned at a forty-five degree angle and began pointing the Rod in Sam’s direction.
“Don’t!” Sam yelled, right before Khalil shot a spell at him. It wasn’t really a curse, since the Rod of Moses couldn’t be considered black magic, but whatever it was, it was clearly strong; the outside of Sam’s barrier that had nearly touched it was singed. Sam put the trunk of the tree between himself and Khalil and gritted his teeth.
This was terrible. Letting Khalil take potshots at him with that weapon was likely to be deadly, yet fighting back meant possibly killing his friend. Granted, when compared to the fate of the entire world, one man’s life didn’t seem terribly important, but he still didn’t want to have to do it.
“Khalil, listen. She’s using you. Break out of her control, let me fix all of this.”
“He can’t hear you, Necromancer,” Dot said archly. “He can only hear me now.”
Sam pinched himself, trying to use the pain to shock himself into reality. As much as he didn’t want to hurt Khalil, he couldn’t let the entire world die because he was afraid of hurting him. He left his shelter behind the mass of the tree trunk and ran back onto the branch, toward Khalil and the fairy.
Stone-faced, Khalil fired at him again, which Sam dodged by ducking while running. The spell still grazed the top of his barrier and nearly took the entire top half of it off.
Yeah, I can’t let him hit me with that thing. I just can’t.
Sam mouthed a word and shot a curse in Khalil’s direction, and managed to hit him square in the chest. It was a non-killing curse—the kind that made people suffocate until they were safely unconscious, the subduing spell Sam was most proficient in—but Sam was frightened and emotional, and that put a modicum of physical force into the curse that didn’t need to be there. Stunned, Khalil was pushed off the branch by the force of the blast. Sam fumbled, trying to direct some sort of spell to catch the man, but it all happened too fast.
He couldn’t reverse time; even putting aside the issue of the taint, trying to do that inside the Faewilde would likely have a horrific domino effect, screwing up time everywhere. He felt that intuitively, but that meant he was uncharacteristically out of options. There was a soft thud as Khalil hit the ground far below, dead.
Yelling in misery, Sam jumped from his branch to Dorothy’s and slammed the fairy against the trunk of the tree, the way he’d wanted to the first time he’d met her.
“You made me kill him! You…you’re….”
He wanted to call her something vile, as vile as he could think of, yet every insult he could think of seemed to refer to him more than it did to her.
“Necromancer…” she began, still looking infuriatingly calm. “Necromancer, let me explain.”
Screaming, he pushed her head to the side and bit the flesh between her neck and shoulder, drinking in her essence. If he had to kill Khalil to save the world, he was going to make damn sure that the world got saved. If that meant fortifying himself by eating a fairy, so be it. She screamed, the sound some weird mix of agony and joy, but quickly was silent. After he had taken everything he could from her, he threw her human shell aside, like an empty candy wrapper. She too hit the ground hundreds of feet below.
He jumped down from the tree, pulsating with strange, verdant energy. By the time he landed, he had no further need of the Faewilde and banished it; he touched down about a block from the Warehouse. Now that there were a limited number of Phantasms, perhaps he had a chance of killing them all.
He was about to take off after Cerberus when a feeling of dread anchored him to the spot. The feeling was so powerful that, for a moment, it made him completely forget that he was overflowing with bizarre fairy magic that he hated.
“Cassie, what have you done?”
Chapter 60
Cassie woke up on an Adirondack chair, next to her mother. It was the second time that day she had woken up and felt a strong sense of déjà vu, this time thinking back to childhood summers spent in places like this.
“Oh, my baby girl,” Annette cooed, wrapping Cassie up in a hug. “At least you’re all right.”
Cassie leaned into the hug, confused. Slowly, the events of the past few hours came back to her. Sam had transported them all, including their families, to (relative) safety. Then he had needed a barrier, and Cassie had given him as much magic as possible so he could make the strongest one he’d ever made. Naturally, the effort of doing so had knocked her out.
In addition to her own parents and Hunter, Jay’s mother was also there. Dwight was about twenty feet in front of her starting a campfire, with John Golding’s help. David Fishman and Helena Liddell were sitting on the porch of a nearby cottage talking, while Teddy rolled around on the dry grass. The Buckleys, except for Nyesha, were all present. All together, they made a pretty big group.
A cool breeze rustled Cassie’s hair, and she had to smile despite the situation. They were clearly in the Adirondacks, not at her grandparents’ old cottage but likely nearby. Sam had taken them there because if the worst happened, this was where she wanted to be when she died. Granted, it wasn’t very impressive that he knew that when he could read her mind, but it was sweet nevertheless.
Cassie tried to stand up but Annette pulled her back down into her chair.
“Sweetie, you’re very tired. Why don’t you rest? Thanks to your boyfriend, we’re all safe.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Cassie said reflexively. Then she remembered the other night, where she and Sam had come very close to consummating their relationship, and blushed.
I probably shouldn’t say he’s not my boyfriend anymore. Because I’m not the kind of girl who does that with a guy who ISN’T my boyfriend…that’s Miri.
Speaking of the vampire, she came up to where Cassie and Annette were sitting and knelt down between their chairs.
“Anyone want tea? Liam just got back from getting groceries.”
“Where’s Aeka?” Cassie said suddenly, ashamed that she had forgotten her until now.
“Inside the cottage,” Miri said.
“I’m
fine, sweetheart. Tea would be nice later.” Annette said to Miri. It was a testament to how dire the situation was that Annette was being so affectionate.
Miri smiled softly at Annette, then dropped her gaze.
“I should have killed that fairy when I had the chance.”
“You can’t solve everything that way,” Cassie said.
“It would’ve been worth a try,” Miri said, pouting. “Now because of her, Khalil’s….”
The petite vampire looked down, hiding tears. Annette leaned forward and took one of her hands.
“Sweetheart, I may not be the biggest fan of that Sam…person, but I can see that he’s very dependable. I’m sure he’ll bring back your boyfriend safe.”
After a moment, Miri pulled her hand away gently.
“Yeah, well, I’m not so sure,” she said. Then she walked away. She walked past David, who was heading toward where Cassie was sitting, then ran into the cottage, past Helena, who turned her head to look at her. David cleared his throat.
“Uh, everyone? Got a bit of an announcement.”
Everyone looked David’s way. He was clearly nervous at the attention he had solicited, but pressed on anyway.
“My parents contacted me, mentally. They’re trying to get me to come back, now that things have gotten serious. The Eastern Court is putting a barrier around all of Europe.”
“Only Europe?” said Jay. He was sitting with Hunter, Mike, and his mother, Patricia.
“I think that’s all they can afford,” said David.
“They can’t afford even that,” Cassie said. “Any barrier THAT big, I don’t see how it could be strong enough. Maybe if they had a hundred familiars like me.”
She felt self-conscious commenting on her own magical abundance, but it was true.
“That barrier is only for their peace of mind. Otherwise I’d tell you to go, David.”
David’s narrow face settled into a frown.
“At this point, even if they did have a good barrier, I still wouldn’t go back.”
“That is stupid. Don’t die for pride,” said Dmitri. He was sitting under a tree, looking particularly melancholy.
“Don’t die for anything, if you can help it,” added Billingsly.
Cassie looked down at the plastic slats of her chair, despondent. What she’d seen of the Phantasms had convinced her that whatever the demons were doing was probably a doomed effort. That kind of magic was too large to be fought; not without something equally huge and ridiculous.
Fortunately for the world, ridiculous ideas were her specialty. She got up out of her chair.
“Honey?” her mother asked, her tone nervous.
“I have to go help Sam. And everyone else.”
Her mother grabbed her once again.
“Cassie, listen to me: there is nothing you can do!” she said, holding Cassie’s shoulders. “This is a big fight between monsters, and we have to leave it to the monsters. You’ve already done more than enough.”
“No I haven’t, Mom.” She stepped back out of her mother’s grasp. “I’m sorry, but I’m a monster too. And if I don’t fight, I’m pretty sure the good monsters are going to lose.”
“My only daughter is not a monster!” Annette bellowed, showing some of her usual fire. Jay’s mother Patricia walked up and took Annette into her arms, where Annette broke down. Cassie looked away, not wanting to see her mother looking so vulnerable.
Seeing her resolve, Eugene got up from where he was sitting on a gingham blanket with Ethan and walked over to Cassie. “You know, my master would want me to stop you.”
“Your master isn’t here.”
Eugene considered her for a moment.
“Is there anything you need?”
“I need a razor,” Cassie said. Then when she heard her mother wail, she turned back and added, “I’m not going to kill myself! Come on!”
“What do you need it for?”
“I just…need to bleed.”
Five vampires looked at her with fully dilated pupils. She sighed.
“Come on, you know the blood isn’t for you. Go to a blood bank and hypnotize them into giving you free samples, if you’re that hungry.”
She knew that it was actually a pretty big problem if a bunch of vampires had been transported with vulnerable humans to a remote location with no plans to secure blood, but she could only afford to worry about so much at once.
Liam went inside the house and came back out with a paring knife.
“I assume this will do?” he asked in his softly-accented voice.
“That’s perfect, thanks,” said Cassie. She turned and looked at the treeline, where the sun had only just sunk below the horizon.
Perfect.
After securing some Band-Aids and gauze from Liam, she began to walk away from the cottage, toward the woods.
“Hey, where are you going?” Jay asked, running after her. Mike quickly caught up as well.
“I’m not going to cut myself and bleed right in front of the vampires, that’s rude,” she said. Then she noticed Miri was following them.
“Mir, go away.”
“No.”
“Miri, there’s going to be blood.”
Miri kicked a branch on the ground so hard that it slammed against a tree with a loud cracking sound.
“I don’t care about blood right now, I care about Khalil and killing these things so I can get him back!” she yelled. Then she burst into tears. Cassie stopped walking, turned around, and hugged her.
“Okay, okay! Just don’t stand right next to me when I cut myself, that’s just torturing yourself.”
“I want to torture myself,” Miri murmured.
“I don’t care what you want,” Cassie said, and resumed her walk toward the forest.
After she judged that she was significantly far away, she took the knife and made a tiny cut on her upper arm. Jay breathed a sigh of relief that she wasn’t hurting herself too much. Cassie took a deep breath.
Summon us, a deep voice in her head crooned.
Cassie froze. She thought that her connection to the Watchers had been severed once Aeka had taken the portal into herself, but clearly that wasn’t the case.
Summon us. We can destroy the interlopers.
“No thanks,” said Cassie out loud. Her three friends looked at her with confusion.
It is the only way.
“You’re forgetting something.”
We forget nothing.
“Oh yeah?”
Cassie knelt on the forest floor, feeling the give of the ripe earth beneath her. It had rained recently, and that wet-earth smell was intoxicating.
“I’m a witch: I summon demons, not angels.”
She made another cut on her arm, much bigger this time. Jay flinched.
“Okay, listen up, kids! That is, all my kids, whatever timeline you’re in. I don’t care when and where you exist. If you pass through this uterus at any point, I’m calling you: all hands on deck. That means you too, Devon!” she yelled. “You aren’t needed here, go help your Dad!”
Then she used the knife to slice open her belly.
***
For the third time that day, Cassie woke up disoriented. This time, she was dead.
“Oh no,” she whispered, seeing Jay crying and screaming over her lifeless body. “I didn’t mean to do that. I just realized at the last moment that I needed more blood for a summon that big to work.”
“It was more than that. The summon spell is powered by the paradox: to summon your offspring, you destroyed the womb so that they may never issue from it. Blood was not enough.”
“I guess it doesn’t really matter, either way I’m still dead.”
She looked at where she lay on the forest floor, as Mike, Jay, and Miri went through different acts of mourning. Miri even tried to force some of her blood into Cassie’s mouth to turn her undead, but it was too late; that would only work on a dying person, not one who was already dead.
“Who are you?” sh
e asked her companion.
He was a short, slender man in dark brown robes. He had gray hair and a beard, and blue eyes that looked shockingly familiar.
“Greetings, Granddaughter. I am Metatron.”
Wait, what?
“How am I your granddaughter? You’re not a Watcher.”
His face showed pain at the mention of the rebel angels.
“No, I am not. I was the grandfather of Chava, whom you take after. When the angels came from the Upper Realm to kill all the half-breed children, you were the only one of my grandchildren to survive. The boys, they killed. You retreated into the sea and were too hard to find.”
“I see,” Cassie said, taking that in. Twenty feet in front of where her spirit was now standing, Miri was picking up her corpse.
“You still didn’t really answer my question. You say you’re Metatron, but what is Metatron?”
“The angel of biting it,” said Sammael, stepping into her field of vision. The clearing with Jay, Miri, and Mike was growing fainter.
“I thought you were still geology,” she said to him, surprised. Apparently dead people could still be surprised.
“I was, up until a couple of days ago. Was playin’ possum, to see what I could see. Didn’t really get much out of it, other than you and the little vampire having late-night girly conversations, but I’m not going to complain.”
If Cassie were alive, she would have blushed at the knowledge that Sammael had heard the girl talk that she and Miri had engaged in the previous night…most of it involving his own son in some fairly intimate detail. Fortunately, she was dead, so it wasn’t a problem.
“I see you haven’t changed,” said Metatron gravely.
Sammael turned around and gestured toward the sky.
“This? Everything that just happened? It’s not gonna stick, mark my words,” he said. “My kid is not gonna allow it. Don’t even bother taking her soul, total waste of effort.”