Callon made a slight prick on the tip of my finger.
Bitters smiled widely, a little too giddy for my taste, but I was all in at this point.
“Squeeze it onto the pile.” He pointed, putting the plate right under my finger.
I’d only squeezed out a couple of drops, but the entire pile turned the color of my blood. This stuff was definitely not salt. What was he going to do with it? I tapped my foot a little faster as I thought about Callon’s warning.
“Now you, Dal,” Bitters said, waving her over.
I jerked my head to her, along with everyone else, as if she knew what was going on.
“Why me?” Dal asked, with the same look of confusion we all had.
“Why her?” Dax asked.
“Don’t you want to do something with this and the mud?” I asked, all of us speaking over each other.
Callon was pointing at Dal as he asked Dax, “Wait, so you vouch for him when it’s Teddy but it’s not okay for Dal?”
“Only because it doesn’t make sense. The mud doesn’t want Dal,” Dax said.
Callon stared at Dax for another second before turning to Bitters. “What are you playing at?”
Bitters seemed unfazed by all the aggressive energy directed his way. “Do you people want answers from me or not? Dal is a Plaguer. Teddy was born from a Plaguer. I need to see if there’s some sort of connection.”
“So it still might be the Plaguer blood drawing the sludge?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Bitters said, throwing his hands up.
I wasn’t so sure he was as in the dark as he played. He knew something, or suspected, at minimum.
“Here.” Dal strode forward, grabbing the knife that seemed to never leave her hip. She twirled the knife in her hand. She was squeezing out blood onto the other pile and I hadn’t even seen her cut her finger.
Bitters took the plate and then turned as he placed it on the table. He began to whisper words I didn’t understand, and the two piles of red began to rise. He continued to chant, and lines of red sand streamed upward and then began to circle each other. He continued, his words growing stronger, and a chill filled the air. The two streams of sand began to merge, and as they did, they glowed a light blue, like the heart of a flame.
“Look at that!” Bitters said, hopping up and down.
I looked back at Dal and Dax. He was their wizard. Did they know what he was so happy about? One look at their squinted eyes said no.
“She’s your daughter.” Bitters made a stabbing motion with his finger in my direction, before clapping and laughing as if he’d won a prize.
The sound of Bitters’ hands slapping together was the only sound in the room. Even my heart had stopped beating. Thought was beyond me. All that existed in the place of my brain was muddled confusion.
“Bitters, our daughter is dead,” Dax said. This was no gentle reminder but a verbal kick to the teeth.
So much for vouching for Bitters. It sounded like someone was going to die if he didn’t stop with the made-up fantasy crap, or at least get evicted.
“That’s what threw me off the scent. But no, I’m sure. She’s your daughter. I’m positive.” Bitters pointed at me again. If he didn’t stop, I was going to break his arm.
I looked at Callon. He said nothing, but I didn’t like the way his eyes had narrowed on me. He couldn’t possibly believe this, could he?
I looked at Dal; her lips were parted and she had that damned hopeful expression on. Dax’s expression was more of an ah ha!, which wasn’t much better.
“You’ve all lost your minds. My mother lived half a world away from here and she sold me. You’re not my parents.” I turned to Bitters. “You were supposed to tell me about the Hell Pits. Does this have anything to do with why they’d be attracted to me, or was this some side amusement of yours?”
Bitters shrugged. “Mostly an amusement.”
“Can you help me with the Hell Pit? Do you have any idea why it wants me?” I demanded.
“No,” Bitters said.
What if Dal and Dax tried to cling to this bull and forced me to stay here? Then what? Suddenly, the basement was a jail I needed to escape. “I’m leaving.”
I wasn’t willing to be anyone’s prisoner ever again. It didn’t matter if they were trying to trap me with made-up family ties that couldn’t be real. If Bitters wouldn’t or couldn’t figure out what was going on with the sludge stalking me, I was getting out of here.
I spun, looking to see how many people were between me and the stairs, hoping I wouldn’t have to kill them on my way out. Either way, I was leaving. I’d had it with this place. I weaved around Callon. He could stay and continue to ponder Bitters’ words and catch up with me later. I was getting my shit and getting out. I had a good five miles before I’d get stuck, and hopefully Callon would be following me by that point.
Dax shot in front of me. “I don’t know what’s going on, but we should look into this.”
Dal got right behind him, her face still full of that hope stuff again in spite of what I’d told them. Stupid woman. I couldn’t look at her. It was too sad.
“You said your daughter is dead. There’s nothing to talk about. Let me pass.”
Dax held out his hand. “I can’t let you leave.”
Callon grabbed my shoulder to pull me back. I was about to haul off and punch him when I realized his target was Dax. “Dax, get out of the way. She doesn’t want to stay, and no one is forcing her to.”
Dal grabbed Dax’s arm. “Dax, he’s right. We can’t keep her here. Not after what she’s been through. We can’t force her.”
Dax turned toward her. “What if—”
“It doesn’t matter. We can’t do it. We can’t. Not after what she’s been through.” She clung to his arm as if he were the only thing keeping her standing. Dal looked over at me, glassy-eyed. “We force her to stay and she’ll run the second she can, and we’ll never see her again.”
Dax stared at her for a moment before his hand covered hers. He nodded. She nodded back, as if to say it would be okay.
Dax turned to me. “I’m not letting you leave without some questions answered. After that, you can go. It’s a fair compromise.”
Callon turned to me. “What do you want to do?”
To run and not look back. I didn’t know who these people were, but they weren’t mine. I had Tuesday—that was my person. And Callon, maybe, as crazy as that seemed.
Dal was gripping Dax’s hand so hard while she waited for my answer that he’d be bruised tomorrow. I shouldn’t care what these people wanted, but he wasn’t asking that much, right? And she was going to cry. I could see it. The longer I stood here arguing, the more her eyes filled. They weren’t going to be able to hold that load too much longer without some tears springing free.
“Fine. For a little while only.” I gave Callon a look that said, And if they try to stop me after that, the gloves come off.
He put his hand to my lower back again, letting me know he would back whatever play I wanted to make.
Dal and Dax led the way upstairs. They took a seat at the table, side by side.
I walked over but didn’t sit. Callon didn’t either.
“What happened to your child? You said she was dead. How can I be her?” I asked. It was brutal and to the point, but they were trying to latch on to me to relieve their sorrow. It wasn’t my sorrow to fix. I had enough of my own problems without their two-decade-old grief to deal with. This wasn’t why I’d come here.
Dal’s head dropped forward. “I’m sorry about what happened downstairs. We’re not trying to frighten you or force you to stay here, but we do have reason to think it could be true.”
“Our daughter was only a month old when she caught a coughing sickness and died,” Dax explained, putting his arm around Dal’s shoulders.
“Then why would you think I was her?”
Dal reached up her hand, holding on to Dax’s. “There is this place that can sometimes save the dea
d. It had worked for a dear friend of mine when I lost him. When our daughter died, we put her there. We checked on her every day for months, but it didn’t seem to work. Finally, Dax thought we needed to stop. That it was destroying us. That we had to get past it.”
“It was too hard, especially after our first loss. We had to move on before it broke us,” Dax said.
“First loss?”
“Our son. I gave birth to him at five months, too small to survive on his own,” Dal said.
No one spoke for a minute, as I could see Dal trying to gather herself.
Callon was the first to break the silence. “I don’t know what kind of magic this place had, but after that long, I’d think it unlikely to have worked.”
Dal was nodding rapidly, her head still dropped forward and with suspicious swiping action across her face happening.
Dax nodded, and I could see the logic hitting him. I wasn’t their daughter.
“Who are your parents?” Dax asked.
“I didn’t know them, but my mother was supposedly a Plaguer,” I said. “Considering that I do have the sight, I believe it. She sold me as an infant to a man named Baryn. That’s it. Every detail I know.”
“Then you can’t say for sure that you’re not our daughter,” Dal said, lifting her gaze to me again with that damn hope clinging in spite of the tears now flowing down her cheeks. “We need to go back to the grave. I want you to come with us.”
“I’m not your daughter. We came for one reason only. To get answers about the Hell Pits.” I would’ve left it there, except something about the smile being stripped from Dal’s face hit some chord within me. Even if I’d decided to give up on hope, something about her losing it scratched and tore at my insides.
I wanted to tell them that I was done. I couldn’t talk about it anymore. Maybe Bitters believed what he said, but that didn’t mean it was true. Pretending as if we were family would only cause heartache in the end. I focused on Dax instead, on features that were set in stone. You couldn’t wring an emotion out of him if you tried right now. He was locked down like granite.
Callon was standing a few feet to my right with a look that said he’d back me up either way. I was about to turn around and leave until I heard Dal take in a shaky breath. How many times had I done that very thing as I tried to hold it together because something in life had broken my heart once again? That shaking breath was my undoing.
“Look, once we have things under control, I’ll come visit the grave if you want. But I can’t do it right now.” And later, I might be dead, but I wasn’t going to tell them that. I’d never get out of this house.
Dax’s mouth softened, and I took a glimpse at Dal. She didn’t look happy, but at least her breathing wasn’t choppy anymore.
“That would be good,” Dax said. “We’ll hold you to that.”
Fuck. I’d been hoping for something closer to We’ll see you when we see you.
“Will you stay the night?” Dal asked?
“If it’s all right with you, yes.”
I didn’t want to. I wanted to grab my bag and hightail it out of this crazy house, but there was one last thing I had to handle before I left here.
Twenty-Three
“Twenty minutes out front,” Callon said as he walked to the door with our bags in hand.
“I’ll be down.”
Twenty minutes? It was as if Callon had known I was up to something since last night. He hadn’t gone for a run or a chat. I’d had to sit on my hands waiting for an opening. I watched out the window as Callon walked across the lawn, meeting up with Dax. Two down.
I heard the front door shut again, and a minute later, Dal was walking toward them. This was it. I had one chance to do this, and it had to happen now. I ran out of the bedroom and made my way downstairs.
The basement door was open, and a stream of funny-smelling smoke was wafting upward. I closed it behind me, hoping to muffle any noises the rest of the house might hear.
“Hello?” I said softly as I took a few more steps down.
“Come in,” Bitters responded.
I spotted him around the corner, sitting at the table.
He got up and turned to look at me and then pointed his pipe in my direction. “Are you here to complain? I don’t like complaints.”
Even if I did want to rant and rave, I wouldn’t right now. I still needed him.
“I’m here because I’m desperate and I need to ask you for one more thing.” I barely took a breath before I continued, not giving him an opportunity to stop me. “The man I came with, Callon—there’s a Death Spell that ties him to me that I’d like to get undone. And I know you don’t like them, but I really need this.”
“Death Spells are tricky things.”
“So Dax did mention it to you?”
“No one needed to tell me anything. I can see it. There’s a black rope that ties the both of you together.”
Did that mean Dax had asked him or not? Did I press for an answer and risk alerting him? No. I needed this fixed. That was the important thing, and I was short on time because I had this hunch Callon didn’t want it undone. Maybe he was afraid someone else would get me and use me. It didn’t matter. I couldn’t trust him. He’d already tried to shut me down once.
Bitters waved a hand next to me, and the image of a black rope appeared, leathery and thick. It disappeared into my waist, as if it were anchored to something inside me, then extended out until it faded into the wall in the direction of the front yard, where I’d last seen Callon.
“Can you sever it? I’ve heard Death Spells are harder to undo.”
He nodded. It wasn’t a vigorous nod but a gentle up and down.
“So you can reverse it?”
He took a deep drag of the pipe while he scratched his unruly hair. He blew out a few smoke circles before saying, “Yeah, I might, but it depends.”
“On what?”
“How your magic reacts to it. If it cooperates, it’ll work. If not, you might be stuck with it. And there will have to be payment.” His eyes were narrowed, but I couldn’t tell if this was some sort of swindle or if he’d gotten smoke in his eye.
“I’ll pay whatever you want, but I need it done.” Dal and Dax’s conversation last night ran through my head. I now understood how someone could end up with a crazy wizard in their basement. If I was lucky enough to survive this and have a basement, he was welcome to it.
“Eh, I’ll give it a shot.”
He puffed on his pipe again, ashes falling about the floor, blending in with the others.
“Uh, what do you think the payment will be?” I asked.
“I don’t have anything in mind now, but I’ll come calling when I’m ready. You sure you want to break away from this Callon guy? I can’t say he seems like a nice man, but that’s not the important thing. He seems like the right man, and that’s what counts.”
“Shouldn’t the right man be a nice man?” I asked.
“Sure, in fairytales maybe, but not in the world we live. You’re better off with the man who can get the job done, by whatever means necessary. This Callon looks like that type.” He stabbed his pipe at the air, emphasizing his point.
“I just need this done.”
“Okay.” With a shrug, he walked over and started moving things around on his table until he found a pair of scissors. He mumbled some words over them and then came to me and made a snip. The black rope dropped, hanging limply at my side.
“Done.”
“That’s it?” What the hell? A snip from a pair of scissors and the big, bad Death Spell is gone?
“Not sure. It might try to regrow, but you’ll have a while before that happens. And if you’re far enough away, it might not be able to. I’ll call on you for the bill at some later point.” He walked over to his table and went back to whatever I’d interrupted.
I didn’t argue or question. I didn’t have the luxury, as the clock was ticking and I needed to get out front before the house was searched. I took th
e stairs two at a time, left the house, and strolled across the lawn.
“Where were you?”
“Just getting ready to leave.”
He didn’t say he didn’t believe me—aloud, anyway.
I turned away from Callon’s all-knowing eyes and looked at Dax and Dal. “Thanks for the bed and the food. I’ll try to make it back out this way after everything gets settled.” I might need a place to crash while I was on the run from sludge, anyway.
They were looking at me the way Callon had. Was everyone going to call me a liar today? I hadn’t even lied to them. I really might be back.
They kept staring, and I feared that, at any moment, Dal would try to embrace me.
“Okay, well, nice meeting you,” I said with a quick wave. I walked away, heading toward the bike. Their desperate eyes burned my back, making me want to run, not walk.
The sooner I got out of here, the better. If I had to hang around and watch these people staring at me like I was their dead daughter, they might drive the final nail in the coffin of my sanity. I wasn’t who they wanted me to be. That person was dead. They’d seen her die. The sooner they accepted that, the better.
I stood by the bike, waiting for Callon. He was taking his sweet old time as Dal and Dax continued to talk to him, while taking turns staring at me.
He finally made his way over, and I caught a glance of Dal and Dax from the corner of my eye. Dax put and his arm around Dal’s shoulder, giving her a gentle squeeze. She dropped her head and turned, walking out of his embrace and heading back to the house. Her head didn’t lift.
Callon stopped beside me but didn’t get on the bike. “You’re sure you want to leave? We could stay another day or so. I don’t think that place they’re talking about is that far.”
So help me, if he didn’t get that disapproving tone out of his voice, I was going to ride out of here without him. And I could now, even if he didn’t know it.
“I get that they’re your friends, but that doesn’t mean I should pretend to be their daughter. Don’t you think there’s something cruel about that? I do.”
Savage One: Born Wild Book Two Page 15