Playing With Monsters

by Amelia Hutchins

  Spyder had remained behind with the body and his mental voice drifted across my mind. “It was an Asmodeus demon. Chicken shit fled as soon as the boy died; his body reeked of the possession once the demon had left it. Bad news is, it wasn’t one we know.”

  The Asmodeus demon must have taken control of the boy some days ago, possessed his body, and claimed ownership of it. They’d then gone after her, which meant only one possible thing. Demons had come to play at Haven Crest. The big question was, why? Todd and Cassidy’s tryst in Lena’s home and in her own bed made sense now. He wasn’t just weak; he was pathetic enough to be possessed by a very nasty creature whose earmarks were lust and violence.

  It could be Asmodeus demons who were responsible for the rash of young women disappearing lately, or it could be her brother who was responsible. It was something we needed to look closer at, seeing as whoever it was, was fucking around in my business. Young witches had a variety of uses, be they alive, dying, or even freshly deceased.

  I could sense her emotions although I had missed what he’d said to her. Normally I’d try to read her mind, but with Lena, I couldn’t. She’d perfected her walls, and with each new day she woke, she reinforced them.

  Once I had her tucked securely in my bed, protected in my arms, I heard a whispered, “Thank you,” her voice raw from screaming for help that hadn’t come in time.

  “Sleep, Lena, I’ve got you,” I replied, holding her tighter. Before I knew what I’d done, I kissed her pulse that ticked wildly. “Nothing can touch you here, you’re safe,” I watched as she closed her eyes and her breathing grew even with sleep.

  *~*~*

  ~Magdalena

  I awoke alone, stretched out on a huge bed that was as soft as silk. My eyes snapped open, and I looked around the room. I was in Lucian’s bed, my body still naked and battered from last night. I sat up slowly, pulling the covers up with me to hide my nakedness. I ached; even sitting up hurt too much.

  I moved sluggishly, taking inventory of all the aches I felt, or could see. There were a lot more than I had initially thought last night. Between my legs, the soft flesh was sore, painfully so. Bruises covered my inner thighs, and after peeling away the gauze and tape, I saw that the bullet wound was nothing more than a thin angry red line, and not deep. The side where Todd had cut me had scabbed over as the skin began to heal. As it had after the fire, the cream did an amazing job of healing. The burns should have taken weeks to heal, and I knew that somehow Lucian was using something more than the cream to speed up the healing process.

  I looked at myself in the mirror, noting I had bruises on my lips and my chin, as well as the side of my face, where swelling made it look worse than it actually was. I’d felt no pain when I’d fallen asleep, dulled by the adrenaline, no doubt. Today I hurt like hell, and moving took a huge effort on my part.

  I slipped into the shower, noting that someone had left a change of clothing for me. Taking extreme care with my aches, I cleaned up, then briskly toweled off and slipped into the sweat pants; a floral pattern of roses covered them, so most likely my mother had left it. The shirt was baggy, so I tucked it into the sweats and slipped on the zip-up jacket that matched the sweats. I tied my hair up into a high ponytail, which made me wince in pain from the large bumps and cuts on the back of my head. He’d smashed my head against the ground, and yet he’d begged me to kill him, to stop him from hurting me. It didn’t make sense.

  It still seemed unreal, as if I’d watched it happen to someone else instead of living it. I wasn’t ready to deal with what happened. I knew distinctly that I hadn’t been the only victim. Todd had been fighting something off, even as he’d attacked my body. Strangely enough, I didn’t feel violated, nor did I blame myself for what had happened. I had heard it was a common thing that victims did after being raped.

  I entered the kitchen, ignoring the fact that the noisy room went silent the moment I entered it. Lucian was there with the man who’d been with him last night, the only two who knew exactly what had happened. My grandmother and family were there, along with several elders from the coven who looked at me with pity. I didn’t fucking need pity.

  “Magdalena, are you alright?” my mother asked as I poured coffee and turned to look at them better. It was time to deal with this, and sometimes a good offense was better than always being on the defense.

  “No, I’m not. Neither is Todd, and what happened was awful, but I need you to understand that I am not the only victim here. I was attacked, so don’t ask me if I am fine, because right now I can’t give you that answer. I felt something in Todd; he didn’t want to do what he did. Someone was controlling him; he practically begged me to kill him. That’s what we should focus on.”

  “I felt everything that happened to you,” Kendra said softly, her eyes filling with tears. She was speaking about the rape, and I wasn’t willing to go there. Not yet.

  “Learn to turn it off, Kendra,” I replied crisply. Probably more because I was embarrassed by what she’d felt. My body being violated violently; I hadn’t wanted that for her. No one should ever feel something like that, ever.

  Sometimes, with the bond Kendra and I shared, it was hard to separate from each other. I felt her, as if she was an extended part of me, as she did with me. I hadn’t been able to close the bond during the attack, which meant she knew every vile detail of what had happened to me, as if had happened to her.

  “What happened to you…it’s,” one of the elders started to say, her gentle gray eyes watching me carefully.

  “It shouldn’t have happened. It sucked. I’m dealing with it in my own way, and I’ll thank you all to not treat me like a piece of fine china. I won’t shatter. I do, however, need you to know that Todd saved me. He deserves to be buried with honor for his sacrifice. Without it, you’d be getting ready to perform my burial instead of his.”

  “He tried to harm someone from one of the original families; he will not be buried with the honor of the ancestors,” another elder replied carefully.

  “You’re not hearing me. Todd didn’t have a choice; it wasn’t him. Something had control of his body, somehow. I don’t understand it exactly, but from the moment I stepped into that clearing to the moment he died, he’d begged me to take his life to save my own. Does that sound like someone who wanted to do what he did? He knew I’d picked up the gun and yet he didn’t stop me from killing him, and he could have, easily. Todd allowed me to win, and that right there should alert us to the real problem. I felt something else inside of him, something dark and evil. Focus on that instead of the things that can’t be changed, like what happened to me. You can’t change what’s been done, but we can prevent it from happening to anyone else.”

  No one said anything. They just looked at me as if I’d gone off the deep end. I set the cup of coffee down on the counter and fought for control of my emotions. The electrical pulse in the room that alerted me to Lucian gave me strength. Why it did, I wasn’t sure. Every time I’d awoken last night crying, he’d held me through it, whispering soft words against my ear until I’d fallen asleep. He didn’t have to do it, but he had. He’d been my comfort through the storm as I struggled to fight through the nightmares.

  “Listen, I know the laws. I know if a person is used by possession or compelled to do something, it can be forgiven because they weren’t in control of their own actions. He deserves this. He fought it long enough to be sure I won. For that, he deserves respect.”

  “Dark magic, as you described, would have caused a ripple; we’d have felt it, Magdalena,” my grandmother whispered, her blue eyes locking with mine.

  “Are you sure about that?” I asked. “You didn’t feel Benjamin, and he’s dark. He was outside the manor house right after the fire; did any of the elders who arrived during and after the fire feel him then?”

  “This is true, we did not feel him,” Grandmother said as she wrung
her hands in worry. “But if what you say is true, it means someone is powerful enough to prevent us from sensing their presence. We must start the Awakening immediately. We are more powerful when our full potential is standing with us.”

  “This is all quite shocking; however, I don’t think we should make hasty decisions. If we start the Awakening early, it could create a ripple effect in the generations to come. The timing has always been chosen because magic always flows strongest at Beltane and Samhain, and the postulants would get more of a boost of power by holding the ceremony at one of those two times. Preferably Samhain, as the veil between worlds is easier to cross. It takes less magic to call the ancestors to us, which leaves more to protect those who are receiving their powers.”

  “We should tell Helen,” the other elder said, stopping the silver haired woman before she could expound more about the potential effect on future generations.

  “We are under attack; we must start the preparations. This cannot continue to go on, and you know why, Nancy. It could be connected to the past, and the same reason the records of what happened to the generations who came before us were so spotty,” Grandma said, her eyes closing briefly before she looked at the others.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked as a chill ran up my spine.

  “You shouldn’t discuss coven business so openly!” one elder hissed, his eyes moving around the room carefully.

  Grandmother nodded to the other elder and spoke. “Call the assembly, Nancy. We must bring this new information before the high priestess immediately. We must ensure that we protect the children from whatever is hunting them, quickly.”

  Kendra wasn’t interested in the elders; instead, her eyes took in each visible bruise, and she winced, reliving each one of them. I closed my emotions off, knowing she would feel it the moment I shut her out. Her eyes went wide with surprise, and I looked at her. I’d only done it a few times before, completely closing myself off to her. I turned on my heel and left the room, heading to the cottage to make sure Luna was safe since I hadn’t shut the door when I’d heard Todd’s screams last night.

  “Magdalena, you will attend the assembly. Your marks will show the others that the need for haste is not something that can be put off,” my grandmother said, stopping me in my tracks.

  “You want to show off my bruises?” I asked, incredulous that she’d even suggest it. “So that all women can be terrified that they could be next or because you think the other elders will refuse the idea of moving up the Awakening?” My mouth was moving of its own volition before I could stop it.

  “Because you are proof of the need to rush the Awakening, and to break with tradition,” Nancy explained, as if I was a daft child.

  “No, thank you,” I whispered. “I’d rather not stand in front of the entire coven as a battered, broken example. I’m battered, but I’m never broken. You’ll figure it out without me.”

  I didn’t wait to see if they agreed. I left with my emotions barely in check. I needed a quiet place to be alone, without Kendra’s prying eyes watching my every move. She’d stand in for me at the meeting, it was why they’d let me go. She knew every dirty detail.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I knew my mom worried that I might implode or crack when the eventual reality of what happened hit me. Kendra was afraid of the silence she felt, hating that I was refusing to talk about it. Lucian was giving me time to process, as if he thought I actually would. Kendra was relentless, so I had been sending her on meaningless tasks, and each time she’d finished, she would end up right back in the room with me.

  “You need to talk to me,” she demanded quietly once she’d figured out that I was purposely sending her out on unnecessary errands.

  “No.”

  “So, what, Lena? What’s the fucking plan, shut it off and just not feel anything, just like you did when Joshua died, because that ended so fucking well. You need to open up and talk about it; I already know everything, so just talk to me!” Kendra said as she paced the length of the room.

  “I don’t need a therapist right now, Kendra,” I mumbled as I grabbed the pillow and lay on my side, watching her endless pacing.

  “You took a life; you need to cry or shout, or, shit, Lena…Do something besides sit there and pretend it didn’t happen to you, because it did!” she ordered.

  “I don’t need to scream, or cry, or anything, Kendra. I’m exhausted, and I just need to sleep for a little while.”

  “Fine!” she growled as she kicked off her shoes and crawled into bed, curving her body next to mine as she wrapped her arms around me. We’d done this a lot as children, sometimes as teenagers, but never as adults.

  It felt good, and eventually I closed my eyes.

  “He raped you,” she whispered. “That has to be hard to deal with.”

  I opened my eyes and felt the panic building inside of me.

  “He did, but it wasn’t Todd. I don’t blame him for it, I blame whoever made him do it,” I muttered as I turned to face her. “I can feel your mind, Kendra,” I admitted, hating the way her brain was itching to blame herself. “He loved us both, and he never would have willingly taken my choice from me, or forced himself on me. You have to know that. Todd did a lot of stupid shit, but he wasn’t mean to me, ever. He saved me, he watched me grab the gun and he told me to do it. Don’t let what someone forced him to do change how you felt for him.”

  “How can you be so calm and accepting of the fact that you were raped?”

  “Because screaming and crying won’t change the fact that I was, Kendra. Fuck, listen to yourself. You want me to scream?” I asked, my voice already rising. “You want me to cry? What the fuck will it change? Will it take it away? Will it make me forget that someone forced Todd to fucking rape me? What the fuck is it going to do? Make me better!?” I was crying, I was yelling, and I felt worse for it. “Nothing will ever take it away! Nothing can change it, and I am dealing with it! I’m not falling apart. Someone wanted to hurt me. I won’t give them fucking control! I won’t let them have that power over me, ever!”

  The door opened, and Lucian, my mother, and Spyder, the guy who’d been present last night, all rushed in at my raised voice.

  “Lena, I didn’t mean to…I didn’t mean to upset you,” she whispered as I pulled the covers over my head and shut out the world. “I just want you to deal with it; you’ve been brutalized. You can’t just turn it off; it’s going to eat at you until you fall apart.”

  “Get out,” I whispered. “I am not you. Quit trying to make me feel or behave like someone I’m not,” I emphasized my words with more strength than I felt. “Just leave me alone for a while, all right?”

  I didn’t blame my sister, but I hated that she’d made me visualize it again. I was watching Todd on top of me, pushing inside of me; Todd’s hands smashing my head into the ground, hard. It was all there, on instant replay inside of my head. His look of shock as the bullet hit him, and his blood splattering everywhere, and Todd’s body falling on mine, and me, having to push his dead weight off and out of myself.

  I was trembling. I heard the scuffling of feet as they left the room and then a slight pressure on the bed. I didn’t need to peel off the blankets to know who it was; I could smell him. Feel the sizzle of power that I knew was his.

  He didn’t try to move the covers. Instead, he sat silently on the bed as I let the emotions wash over me before forcing them back into the dark box, which I pushed back behind the wall inside my head. That was a box I didn’t plan on opening anytime soon.

  Eventually, I pulled the covers off my head and looked at him. His eyes were closed, and he was breathing evenly as if he’d fallen asleep beside me. I looked at his long lashes, darker and longer than I’d ever seen on a guy. They almost matched the darkness of his eyes when they were open, and at the moment, I wanted to see his eyes open. I wanted hi
m to press me with some sort of sexual innuendo as he had been doing. I hated that almost everyone was handling me with kid gloves, and acting like I was a delicate thing that needed to be coddled. Then there was Kendra, who was badgering me to act in a way that just wasn’t in my nature.

  I moved closer to him, unwillingly drawn to his welcoming warmth. My cheek touched his chest, and I let the calm and security I felt in his presence wash over me. I closed my eyes, and drifted towards sleep knowing that whatever was out there trying to get me, couldn’t. Not when I had Lucian this close.

  I felt protected.

  I shouldn’t feel this comfortable with a guy I hardly knew, but something told me that with him near, I was safe. Safe from everything except for him, that is. I didn’t care, though. I was exhausted, mentally and physically. I flinched as his arm moved, and wrapped around me as he pulled my body closer to his, holding me close.

  “Sleep, Lena,” he whispered, his eyes opening a sliver. “Spyder will keep everyone away from your room for now. I’ll hold you through the storm.”

  “I’m still not a damsel,” I whispered against his chest. “Distress is a state of mind, and my mind is strong enough to make it through this. I just need time to figure out how.”

  “I know, Lena, you’re a fighter. You won, but winning comes with consequences. You took a life; it will leave a mark on you. No matter the reason it happened, it happened. You don’t feel like a victim because you refuse to be one; it makes you stronger than most of the people in this world.”

  “It doesn’t make them weak,” I whispered. “Being a victim doesn’t mean they wanted to be one. It just means it happened. I don’t feel like a victim; I mean, I know I am, but it feels like it happened to someone else, not me. I was raped, and yet I don’t feel like I was; I guess it helps knowing he didn’t want to do what he did. He didn’t enjoy it, forcing himself inside of me. He hated it. You have no idea how much knowing that helps me process this. Maybe because he was a victim as well, or maybe because I took his life and I know it can’t happen to me again, not the same way.”