Drinking Demons

by Kat Bostick

  It should have been perfect. Every detail was carefully ironed out. The event was masterfully put together for a wedding planned in only a month. Charlie was whistling happily from the kitchen as he prepped food and everyone—excluding Deak—was far more thrilled than she ever anticipated.

  But Mari woke with a dense fog clouding her mind and a weight on her shoulders that felt all wrong. Dread huddled in her middle, the very last emotion she wanted to feel before she married Jasper. When her best friend arrived only an hour before the sun was up, that dread became acute.

  Her family was going to be here. Dad under the same roof as Jasper. Though she hadn’t heard a peep from him since the invitations made their arrivals, Mari knew Dad was coming. The RSVP with his and Veronica’s names neatly penned on them came in the mail the day after Thanksgiving. Maybe that silence from him was finally getting to her. Silence was never good.

  Clearly Aubrey was suspicious and still not fully on board with the whole marriage thing. How was Dad going to behave? What if he showed up and offended everyone? He had talent for that.

  The reality of her decision was finally settling in. Mari had a feeling she would regret this weekend and not because she was marrying Jasper.

  “You’ll have to come back in the summer. There’s a swimming hole in the woods and the trees are breathtaking. The lodge has miles of hiking trails too.” Mari said in her front desk manager voice as she held the door to the greenhouse open for Aubrey.

  The property was beautiful at any time of year but the mounting snow did limit the possibilities for a more extensive tour. They’d just finished up in the garage, boring Aubrey to death with the history of the old barn wood. Mari was trying to salvage this awkward excursion by showing her the greenhouse and all the work she’d already put into cleaning it up. By next year there would be seedlings for the vegetable garden and a myriad of herbs for cooking and casting.

  They huddled further into their thick winter coats as she guided Aubrey to the tiny pond. The water was drained and the fountain turned off this time of year to prevent freezing pipes. Aubrey didn’t seem to be paying much attention anyway.

  Just as she turned to say something more, Aubrey grabbed both her wrists and shoved the sleeves of Mari’s jacket up to her elbows. “Did he do this to you?”

  She pointed at a yellow-green bruise on Mari’s forearm, one she’d totally forgotten about. Yes, Jasper had done that to her. They were playing and wolf play wasn’t always gentle.

  Mari jerked back and tried to yank her sleeves down but it was too late. Aubrey’s gaze flitted to her other forearm, the one sporting a long, pink scar from wrist to the crook of her elbow, and a tsunami of tears flooded her face. “Oh my God, Mari! What did you do?”

  Father Above, she knew Aubrey would notice eventually. Mari couldn’t hide her scars forever. The drumming of her heartbeat became so loud it pounded painfully against her skull. How could she possibly explain this without telling the truth? How could she keep lying to her best friend? This was supposed to be a lighthearted party. A big show for the people she loved to prove she was happy.

  It hadn’t even begun and it was already unraveling.

  “I didn’t do anything.” Mari slipped her jacket sleeves down and gave her back to Aubrey. She literally couldn’t face this.

  “Did you try to kill yourself?”

  “No!” she whipped around. “Do you really think I would do that?”

  “I don’t know what you’d do anymore! You’re living with some creepy cult family and pretending like it’s totally normal that you ghosted everyone you know back home. Are you brainwashed? Did they make you do that? Did they do that to you?” Aubrey’s pale face was turning redder with every word. “Did he do it?”

  A frustrated tear slipped down Mari’s cheek. “I’m not brainwashed, Aubrey! I know this isn’t your idea of normal but it’s what I need. I’m happy here. The pa—” She needed to compose herself or she was going to blurt something she shouldn’t. “Jasper’s family took care of me when I had nothing left. Jasper took care of me. He would never hurt me.”

  “When you had nothing left? When was that, exactly? You always had me! And your dad and Samuel.” Aubrey let out a sob. “And really? He wouldn’t hurt you? Explain the bruises and scars! Explain why he follows you around like a stalker.”

  “There were things I couldn’t tell you, Aubrey. I was trying to keep you safe from what was happening to me.” Mari wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and wrapped her arms around her best friend.

  Aubrey resisted the hug at first, standing stiffly, her hands fisted. With another heart-wrenching sob, she squeezed Mari’s waist and collapsed against her. “What’s really going on, Mari? You have to tell me the truth. I drove three hours in the snow to infiltrate this crazy cult you joined and rescue you! Am I in danger of getting sliced up and sacrificed? Is Jasper a murderer?”

  Mari tried to swallow her loud laugh down but she couldn’t. Maybe it was because the suggestion seemed so absurd and maybe it was because it was technically true. By most people’s standards, Jasper was a murderer.

  “This isn’t funny, you lunatic!” Aubrey pulled back to scowl at Mari. Her mascara was runny and her cheeks were bright enough pink to match her magenta jacket. “Tell me what’s going on right now or I’m going to kidnap you and drive you home.”

  She tried not to smile. “You came to rescue me even though you thought I joined a cult?”

  “Best friend of the year award goes to me!” Aubrey huffed.

  “Look Aubs, I never meant to lie to you. I never meant to keep anything from you. My life just got exponentially more complicated after this spring and I didn’t know how to process it, much less talk about it.”

  Aubrey gave her a flat look and waved her hand impatiently. “Let me know when you’re finished with your excuses.”

  “Charlie’s family is different but they’re not doing anything wrong. They have no one else in the world but each other and they don’t want to lose that. They make a home together. They give each other somewhere to belong.” Her voice cracked and any hint of amusement vanished. “They give me somewhere to belong.”

  “What about Klein? And your family and friends? You could call this off right now and come back.”

  “I don’t belong there anymore.”

  She expected to feel sad about that statement. A few months ago, she was. Now, Klein felt like a distant memory. She didn’t want to move on from her friends and family, but she couldn’t be with them anymore. Maybe this wedding was meant to show them that she was happy and they could stop worrying, or maybe it was meant as a goodbye. It didn’t mean she would never see them again, would never call to make sure they were okay, but things wouldn’t—couldn’t—be the same.

  Someday when Aubrey got married, Mari might not be able to attend. Klein was Twelve Lakes pack territory and Charlie’s family was very much not welcome there. The rules for members of a pack were different. Besides, there was so much out there she hadn’t fathomed before. Covens and stray wizards and rogue wolves with unknown and sometimes ill intentions. Mari couldn’t just venture out of pack territory on her own.

  The truth was only now sinking in. She was pack. And she was never leaving.

  “Because of Jacob? Because of Gran? You can’t just run away when bad stuff happens to you.”

  “It’s so much more than that, Aubrey. I’m not the same person I was at the beginning of the year. I don’t want to be her anymore.”

  “And what about Mister Murder Eyes?” Aubrey crossed her arms. “There is something off about him, Mar. Don’t you see it? I get that he’s like super good looking but he’s really weird about you. Is he abusing you? You still haven’t explained the rest.” She gestured to Mari’s arms.

  “Jasper would never hurt me.” Mari repeated, her eyes refilling with tears. “Jasper saved me. More than once.”

  “Then what about this?” Aubrey gently took her left wrist and pushed her jacket sleeve back
up to reveal her ruined moon phases tattoo. “Did you do this to yourself?”

  Mari took a slow breath, drawing it out so she had longer to think of an answer. If she wasn’t the person she used to be then she had to start acting like it. Lies had torn her family apart and kept her in the dark about who she was. Lies had gotten her, Jasper, and the entire pack hurt. Lies had cost the lives of otherwise innocent witches and wizards. No more lies.

  “Someone did this to me.”

  Aubrey’s jaw dropped and her hands started to shake. “Someone tried to kill you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who? Why? Why didn’t you tell me? Did you file a police report? Are they caught? Are you still in danger?”

  “It was the same person responsible for my house burning down. I’m pretty sure she’s responsible for Gran’s death, though I’ll never be able to prove it. She thought I could give her something that I couldn’t, so she hurt me. There was something broken inside of her and it was eating her alive. She isn’t a risk to me or anyone else anymore.”

  “…why? Is she in jail?”

  “No, she’s dead.” The darkness had been at bay since the full moon with Jasper. Those three simple words were a trigger, summoning it from the depths of her soul to crawl across her skin and whisper vicious things into Mari’s ear. She’d been so sure the bond was stronger than the darkness, protecting her from the weight of evil that had previously been crushing her.

  She’d been wrong.

  “Dead.” Aubrey echoed, her voice oddly hollow. After a lengthy pause, she whispered, “How did she die?”

  No more lies. “I killed her.”

  Chapter 15

  Alan

  Though he was upright and his heart still beat within his chest, Alan was a dead man. At least, that was how he felt on days like today. On days when he had to deal with her. It was easy to pretend that his life was normal, that he was normal, when he was tucked safely in his routine.

  He and Veronica were the perfect appearance of content. Their house was well-maintained, the landscaping tidy and reasonable. Every Friday night they left promptly at seven for a date night, often accompanied by Vee’s many friends. Emma and Samuel were both earning perfect grades in school. Samuel even had a promising relationship with a girl from a normal middle class family in Chicago.

  For a man in his shoes, it was the best he could hope for. A second marriage—a second chance at love, some called it. To Alan, it was merely going through the motions. Maybe that was why he cared so little about Veronica’s infidelities, why it barely mattered that she hadn’t spoken a kind word to him since their first year of marriage. Why should he deserve kindness?

  And there was Emma. Alan viewed her as his chance at redemption, an opportunity to be the father he couldn’t be for his own daughter. Emma was only five when he married her mother. Such a sweet, quiet girl. More often than not, Mari was mistaken for a transplant in their family and Emma his own blood. Alan never went out of his way to correct that notion.

  She was struggling lately—struggling in the way that all teenagers do. Pushing boundaries and buttons, looking for ways to get a rise out of people. It was all very normal. She wasn’t demanding to join a coven or learn about ancestral magic. Emma simply wanted to go out with boys, to go to parties, to come home past her curfew. There was plenty of brooding and arguing, plenty of eye rolling.

  All so very normal.

  Mari stood between two unfamiliar men, one a tall redhead, one with eyes such a pale shade of blue they seemed to glow. Charles Dunne. That had to be him.

  Aubrey stood a distance from them, clearly uncomfortable. Her complexion was unusually colorless, her eyes tinged red. Belatedly, Alan felt guilty for dragging her into this. He’d never liked the girl—she was mouthy and spoiled—but he also didn’t wish harm on her. With Mari, there was no telling what harm would befall anyone around her.

  Alan shivered as he stepped from the driver’s seat and came around the jeep, feeling a strange and almost familiar buzz roll over his skin. There was a taste in the air, a crackling, fizzy taste that told him he was in the presence of magic folk. He eyed the men for a second time, trying to judge if they were more than they appeared to be.

  Not wizards, but not mundane either. What the hell had Mari gotten herself into this time?

  Juxtaposed against the snow, her dark hair looked midnight black. It was sleek, pouring down her shoulders to hang at her midriff. Jane always wore hers long, too. With a broad-tipped nose, sharp cheekbones, and firm, thick lips, Mari looked so much like her mother that an ache formed in his middle if he stared at her for too long.

  The only difference between the two women besides time and a beating heart was her eyes. Jane’s were a rich toffee color, dark and sweet. Mari’s were lighter, almost a shade of amber, with just enough green to look hazel in the daylight. When they fixated on a person, they didn’t bring to mind sticky dessert. They were too forward, unsettling in their intensity. On a winter afternoon like this one, they reminded him of something animal, something other.

  The few times he’d responded to her choked cries in the dead of night when she first began dreaming the way he did, Alan nearly recoiled at the sight of them glowing eerily in the reflection of her tortoise shaped nightlight. He felt as if the darkness that she was destined for was already inside of her, peering out at him the way a hungry wolf watched prey. Child or not, she wasn’t right. Never had been.

  Given the circumstances of her birth, that was to be expected.

  The memory of that birth was one he never wanted to revisit. But what a man wanted and what he got were two very different things. Alan was haunted daily, not only by his wife’s sallow complexion as blood hemorrhaged from her womb, but by the promises he made that day. And the promises he refused to make.

  “Keep her safe.” That he had done for as long as he could. Alan kept her safe from herself and from hurting anyone by restricting her magic. Now that she was an adult, containing her was proving difficult. That was why he was here.

  “Care for her the way you care for Samuel.” He did that too. Mari was fed and clothed, was given all things necessary to keep a child healthy.

  “And don’t punish her for my death. Don’t blame her for how her life came to be. None can deny the will of the Blue Goddess.” It was an impossible request. How could Alan not resent the child that stole away the only happiness he’d ever known? How could he not be furious with that screaming baby, so greedy for life that she would take her own mother’s?

  Jane was devout in her worship of the goddesses, speaking their praise with reverence. In her practice she was deeply in touch with the divine and swore she heard their voices. Alan didn’t want to doubt her, but he often wondered if he’d entertained insanity disguised as spirituality. His late wife was a gifted witch and a clever woman. Her choice to bring another child into the world, knowing what she did, was reckless and cruel.

  From the moment she knew she was pregnant, Jane couldn’t stop talking about Mari. Even in the womb, nothing more than cells and a fragile beating heart, she had a name. And a destiny. A future—one ordained by Mother Moon. Some days, he felt as if he and Samuel were forgotten.

  Her life for her daughter. Never mind the son she already had, too young to be without a mother. Never mind her husband, too young to be a widower. They were completing their last semester of college when Jane found out about Samuel. Barely married and they were parents. That should have been enough. They should have been enough.

  So yes, he did blame Mari for how her life came to be. Perhaps he was heartless. How could a man distance himself from his own flesh and blood? How could he not when he knew what she was capable of?