by Zandria West
‘Thank you,’ he says, and to my shock, he reaches for my hand, draws it to his lips and kisses it. I bite my lip, feeling the sign on my back burn at the contact. When I say burn, I mean every fucking inch of my back feels like it’s on fire. I’m going to have to get Alex to take a picture, so I can see what the hell has happened to me. Later. When this shit with Jamie is sorted out.
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Are we ready?’
They both nod.
I turn and start to walk towards the door.
The first view of the interior of the cabin takes my breath away. It’s hard to see it and realise that Dad isn’t just in the kitchen putting the kettle on, like he always used to be when I arrived. It’s so full of his presence. His books fill tall bookshelves which line the far wall. Bizarre ornaments sit on every empty space, small mementoes from his many years of travel and work as an archaeologist. His desk is exactly as he left it: covered in papers and notebooks, his favourite tea-pot acting as a paperweight. A little picture of a bird that I drew him when I was twelve is framed and hanging on the wall beside the window.
I swallow down tears that rise unexpectedly.
Then I finally focus on Jamie. He’s standing in the doorway with his hands on his hips.
My brother looks extremely unimpressed.
‘Who the hell are they?’ he says, glaring at Alex then Reuben and then back again, casting a withering gaze on me that reminds me how snarky my brother can be when he’s pissed off. Which is, very.
‘Can we come in, please?’ I ask, suddenly realising that unless someone invites him, Alex won’t be able to cross the threshold.
‘I guess so,’ my brother says slowly, the intense expression of distaste not leaving his face.
That’ll have to do. I step in, and the others follow, very much like bodyguards. I see Alex doing a quick visual sweep of the main room, and Reuben, fuck, he’s sniffing the air like the wolf that he is. As much as it weirds me out, it also makes me feel safe. I thought on what Alex said on the drive here. While I don’t think Jamie would ever do anything to deliberately harm me, he has been known for lapses of judgement while under the influence of girlfriends, and his previous girlfriends weren’t immensely powerful thousand-year-old witches, to the best of my knowledge.
‘So,’ Jamie stands in front of me now, arms crossed, his expression as hard as a granite block. I see Reuben tipping his head to one side as he studies him distrustfully.
‘Could we sit down?’ I say. ‘Maybe have a hot drink or something? It’s been a long drive.’
‘You brought demons to the cabin, Lana. I’m sorry, I’m not going to sit down and have a nice cup of tea with them. You brought fucking demons? Here?’
Shit. Okay. I should have expected this. I forget, sometimes, because I’ve been working at Hell on Earth for so long now that I have a more… tolerant view of our Darktown neighbours than most humans do.
‘Jamie, this is Alexander and Reuben. They’re helping me with the… situation I’m in.’
Jamie narrows his eyes. I see his hands clenching into fists. I almost want to laugh, he’d have no fucking chance against these two, but it’s not funny because that’s exactly the problem. He has no sense of the danger I’m in – we’re in – and he’ll make stupid decisions based on prejudice and fear that have every chance of getting him killed.
‘Settle down mate, we’re not here to do you any harm. We only came because Lana begged us to,’ Alex says, meeting my brother’s angry gaze with his own cool, calm, controlled one.
‘What… what are they?’ Jamie asks me finally.
‘I can answer that one. I’m a vampire, and hairy mutt over there is a werewolf,’ Alex smiles brightly. ‘I know you humans like to refer to us all as demons but technically that’s missing a lot of detail. A bit like if we called you mammals along with, you know, tigers and chipmunks and dolphins.’
‘But you are demons. How did you even get across the Barrier?’
‘Actually,’ I say. ‘That’s what we need to talk to you about. Please, can we all just sit down? And then I’ll tell you everything.’
30
LANA
My brother still doesn’t look comfortable but at least he’s sitting. I take my old chair near the window, and Alex lounges on the couch. Reuben refuses to sit, but paces the room restlessly, checking the windows and doors as if expecting an imminent attack.
‘So, tell me what you need to tell me.’
I clear my throat. ‘The Barrier between the human world and the demon realm is breaking down. The magic that created it is failing. Centuries ago, the Great Witch who made the Barrier hid a key that will allow it to be re-made, and apparently Dad might have found it during one of his excavations.’
Jamie’s eyebrows rise, but he doesn’t say anything. That’s a good sign, right? I keep talking.
‘It seems Dad… Dad may have left it with me. I’m not sure if he really knew what it was or not, but lots of people are searching for it. Demons. And witches. Bad ones. Because they don’t want the Barrier to be remade. They broke into my house looking for it and they attacked me in Darktown. And I’m scared they’re going to come after you, Jamie, because they might think you know something about it too…’
‘Me? What would I know? Apparently I wasn’t important enough to our father for him to share his secrets with me.’
I feel a churning in my gut. I’ve hit Jamie’s sore spot. I didn’t mean to, but there was no way around it really.
‘He never said anything to me about it either, Jamie. I don’t know if it’s even true that Dad found the key, but the point is enough people think it’s true for it to put both of us in danger.’
‘And so you turn to demons to protect you from demons?’ Jamie’s eyes narrow.
‘They’ve been helping me. They’ve risked their lives to save mine.’
‘And what do they want in return? What have you promised them?’ A sneer twists my brother’s mouth.
I frown, anger sparking in my chest. ‘Nothing. Not everyone operates on the basis of personal gain like you do. Sometimes people just do things because they’re the right thing to do.’
‘No,’ Jamie says, shaking his head and rising from his chair. ‘She warned me not to come tonight and I should have listened. I wanted to talk to you. To you, Lana. Not to these… these monsters. She told me that the enchantment would have started working its poison on you already. She was right.’
My brother is pacing in front of me, his hands balled tightly into fists. There’s something in his expression that I don’t recognise and I don’t like it. I don’t trust it.
I rise and take a step towards him. ‘Jamie, listen, they’re not monsters. They’re helping me. Protecting me. They’ve saved my life twice already…’
He shakes his head again, like he’s trying to dislodge my words from his brain. ‘I’m sorry, Lana. I didn’t want to do this, but you’ve left me no choice.’
I see him draw something from his pocket. It looks like a tiny glass bottle. Before I get a closer look at it, he tosses it onto the floor and it shatters. I hear a noise like rushing wings and then a bright light flares – suddenly the air seems to thicken around me. I try to cry out, but I can’t make a sound. I try to reach for Jamie, to implore him not to do whatever he’s doing, but I can’t move. At all. I can only vaguely see from the corner of my eye that Alex and Reuben both seem to be trapped too. What the fuck has my brother done?
‘Only magic can fight magic. That’s what she said. And she’s right, there’s no other way…’
Jamie watches me as he talks. For a second I see a flicker of something… regret maybe… passing over his features. Then I see his expression harden. ‘She’ll be here soon,’ he says, then turns and walks out of the room, leaving us trapped by some invisible force that does not allow us to move even a muscle. Powerless.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. Why the fuck did I come here without Gabriel? Why did I come here at all?
I can’t even s
cream. I feel the tears pool and spill down my cheeks and can do nothing to wipe them away. Pathetic. Fucking pathetic.
I just can’t believe, after everything we’ve been through, that Jamie would do this to me. I want it to be because Clarissa has enchanted him, that she’s used her power to influence him, but the thing is, I’m not sure that’s true. I don’t know if she’d even need to enchant him. Jamie believes so deeply that he’s right, that his view of the world is correct. He would see anyone from Darktown as purely evil, and by extension, because I am allied with them, he’d think I was an enemy too. I was an idiot not to realise that from the start.
My head is throbbing like I’ve got the beginnings of a migraine. I wish I could close my eyes, block everything out, but I can’t even move my own fucking eyelids. I can barely breathe.
Well, today has been terrific. Part of me wishes that Clarissa would hurry up and get here and finish whatever awful thing she’s planning, just to get it over with. I can’t do a fucking thing and it’s driving me crazy. Time feels like glue, my body aches, and the pain in my head is a dark cloud that stops me from thinking.
Time passes, I guess, though I have no idea how much. Gradually, I begin to realise that as well as the terrible throbbing in my head, I feel something else. Almost like a tickle or a whisper, very faint at the edge of my mind. I try to ignore the pain and pay attention to the other feeling. It’s Alex, I’m sure of it. He’s trying to communicate with me through the bond. I reach for his mind but as I do, I push too hard and it slips away. It’s so frustrating, like trying to thread a needle with shaky hands. I try again, more gently this time, and feel a sudden, shivering warmth as our minds connect.
I’m so sorry I tell him. This is all my fault. Alex warned me. And he was right, down to a tee. Exactly what he predicted would happen, has happened.
Don’t fight… It feels so strange as I make the words out, almost like I feel them forming inside my mind, but I know they’re not mine. What does he mean, don’t fight? Of course I’ll fight. I’m not about to just give in and let Clarissa win.
No. Do not fight. She’s… too strong…
I sense the intensity of his effort as he sends the thoughts through the bond and into my consciousness. He means what he’s saying. Means it absolutely. What makes it worse is not just what I can hear through the bond, but what I can feel.
Alexander – the unflappable, charismatic, powerful vampire – is terrified.
I think of the first time I met Clarissa, when she came to visit Dad after their field season in Tajikistan. There was always something about her that I didn’t like. She hung off our father’s every word, though that wasn’t unusual, a lot of his students did. He knew so much, had such a brilliant mind, and shared what he had painstakingly learned with such generosity. There was something else about her though – a coldness I felt when she watched me, like she saw me as some damaged specimen of a lower life-form. At the time I thought she just didn’t like kids, though by my guess she wasn’t all that much older than me. I didn’t know, at that point, that she was in fact a fucking thousand-year-old sorceress. She loved Dad’s book collection. That was her excuse for coming over at first, she was always wanting to borrow or return something, and he never minded. People thought that Dad fell for her because she was young and gorgeous and, let’s be fair, he was a human male so that was probably part of it. But I truly think it was because she was so interested in his work, because she had such an inquiring mind – that was what drew him to her.
Now I realise that maybe, all that time, she wasn’t actually studying the books, monographs, reports, maps, or artefacts. She was searching for the key. She knew she was close, but she didn’t know what she was really looking for.
That makes two of us, I think. The thought would make me shiver, if only I could move.
Finally, I hear the sound I’ve been waiting for. A car engine in the distance, coming closer. Headlights breach the windows and swipe across the room like a blade, then the engine stops. I hear a door open and close. Unhurried footsteps.
I see Jamie rush to the door to open it. Clarissa is just as I remembered her, but more so. More beautiful, colder, more determined. I wish to god I could close my eyes as she and my brother kiss – not just a peck of greeting but a full-blown, tongues-in, open-mouthed kiss that lasts way too long. Ugh. My brother… He’s always been desperate for love and approval. He’s an easy target. I’m not even angry at him, really. But for her I feel nothing but rage. I would tear her limb from limb, if I could just break this damn spell.
At long last they untangle and she steps through the doorway and into the cabin. She walks purposefully into the centre of my field of vision. As she looks at me, she smiles. She turns back to my brother.
‘I know this must be hard for you, Jamie,’ she murmurs. ‘But you’ve done the right thing. I can free your sister from this binding before it causes her further damage. I can return her to you, I promise.’
Jamie’s expression is hard and concentrated. I know that look so well. It’s how he looked as a kid, when he was in pain and trying not to show it.
‘I want you to kill them,’ he says in a flat voice. ‘The demons who’ve captured her. I want them dead.’
No. Please, no. You don’t understand. You’ve got it all wrong. I try to fight, to move, to scream but I can’t do a goddamn thing.
Clarissa smiles and takes a step closer.
‘But of course,’ she says.
31
LANA
Clarissa says a few words under her breath and whatever held me in place loosens and then lets me go. I collapse forward onto the floor, coughing and heaving. It’s all I can manage not to chuck my guts up. My legs and arms are shaking, they’re so weak they can hardly hold my weight. As soon as I finish coughing, I force myself to kneel, and then stand. I won’t let her see my weakness.
‘Let the others go,’ I say.
She smiles at me. ‘What, those two? Oh no, I don’t think so.’
I know Gabriel and Alexander are scared of Clarissa and that should give me pause, but right now I’m flat-out fucking furious. She strung my father along then broke his heart and shattered his professional reputation while she was at it. She’s tangled my twin brother Jamie in her web. She’s frozen my men. God knows what she’s done to Gabriel. She killed Meow-Meow. Before I even think what I’m doing, a feral growl erupts from my chest and I lunge at her, kicking and clawing.
She’s evil, pure and simple. I don’t know how Jamie doesn’t see it.
‘Lana, what are you doing? She’s here to help! You asked for help and I got it for you, okay?’ My brother has his arms around me and he pins me to him. I yell and thrash, but of course he’s been lifting weights at his fancy gym before work every day and he’s just too strong.
‘Where’s the urn!’ I yell at her. ‘Did she mention that to you Jamie? As well as murdering my cat she stole our father’s ashes? Pretty nice move on your girlfriend’s part. Really super helpful wouldn’t you say?’
Calm I hear Alex’s voice in the corner of my mind. Be calm, Lana. If you lose control, she will win.
I turn around and glare at him, and then stop and stare. I can see the magic that holds them – it shimmers and moves, almost like light refracting through a thick transparent substance. Their faces are caught in strange expressions – Alex in a moment of shock, Reuben in gruff anger. Oh god, I don’t want them to die. They look so helpless. I can’t let her kill them.
‘I took it,’ Jamie says, and for a second I don’t even hear his words. Then I hear them, but don’t understand. ‘I took the urn,’ he says. ‘With everything that was going on with you, I didn’t feel I could trust you with it. I went to your apartment and I took it. It’s safe. I’m sorry.’
I turn, mouth open wide, unable to speak. I feel the tears hot on my cheeks.
‘So, Lana, you were wrong about that. I wonder what else you’re mistaken about?’ Clarissa says. Her voice is so soft, but there’s som
ething dangerous about it, like a slender arrow dipped in a deadly poison loosed with a certain aim.
‘What have you done to Gabriel?’ I ask, frowning. I search for him for about the billionth time through the bond. All I can feel is the faintest presence. Damn it, if ever I needed his help it’s now.
‘I haven’t done a thing to him, Lana. If he’s gone missing, it’s for his own purposes. I will ask you again, what else did Gabriel tell you?’
I swallow and look away. I feel like she sees too much when she looks at me. I don’t trust myself under her gaze.
‘Did he tell you he is searching for a magical key to restore the Barrier between the worlds? And that he believes that your father found it, and that he left it to you when he died?’ Clarissa is as focused on me as a hawk on a field-mouse that it wants for a light snack. ‘Do you know anything about that, Lana? You really should tell me, if you do. If your father did leave you something so powerful, I’m sure he meant it for the best, but he was mistaken. So mistrustful, your father, of those who could help him. I mean, do you really think you’d have the strength or the wisdom to use such a key? It is an ancient magical weapon, and should be wielded only by one who has the appropriate knowledge and skill…’
I flinch. Of course I don’t think I’m the right person to use the key. The whole thing still seems ridiculous to me, a huge mistake. I meet Alex’s gaze for a moment. Don’t listen to her. Don’t trust her. I hear his words in my mind.
‘I searched for that temple for hundreds of years, as did Gabriel and others of our kind. The key that was hidden there by the Great Witch was meant for another witch to find, for one with power. Not an idealistic archaeology professor or a weak human girl. It should be mine.’ Her emerald eyes narrow. ‘Let me put it another way. Why do you think these demons are interested in you, Lana?’ She gestures to Alex and Reuben. ‘You think they want to protect you, is that right? They’ve saved you from the scary monsters of Darktown a couple of times and you owe them your life. Why do you think a bunch of demons would be so desperate to reinstate the Barrier between the worlds? You never stopped to wonder?’