by Rob Cornell
Chapter Fifty-Six
I didn’t have time to think too hard on why the spell hadn’t killed the rest of, or any of the gawkers for that matter. I had a theory, but I tucked it aside for now. I only had one concern. Get to Odi. Get to Mom.
I charged for the building and had to stop when Fiona stepped into the doorway, blocking it.
“Get out of the way. My mom is stuck up there.”
Her tiger’s gaze moved to the fallen behind me. She uttered a low growl.
“Move!”
She backed out of my way, and I bolted for the stairs. I leapt over Angelica’s corpse and took the stairs two at a time. When I reached the Maidens’ floor, I braced my broken arm at my side. I had to shift power away from what I was using to fight my pain. Agony lanced through my arm, but now I could draw blue fire into my hand.
I raced into the apartment, reckless but uncaring. I glanced in both directions and found the werewolf on the floor, his head ripped off except for a hunk of flesh on one side of his neck. I could see the top of his spine protruding, separated from the brain stem. That wolf would never get up again.
I hopped over the wolf and ran into the living room.
Odi knelt on the floor, his face streaked with blood, one of his eyes missing, a small bunch of tendons dangling from the socket onto his cheek.
My mother lay before him, her head cradled in his lap, her body still. Too still.
“No. Nonono.”
I extinguished my fire and hurried over, dropped to my knees opposite Odi. I touched Mom’s face. It felt cold. Blood soaked her blouse, all of it pouring from the shard of wood protruding from her chest.
“Mom. Mom. Please.” I shook her, but she didn’t respond.
“Sebastian,” Odi said, voice thick. “She’s—”
“No!”
I touched her neck like I had touched Rachel’s only moments before. And I felt the same thing.
Nothing.
Creaky laughter came from behind me.
I looked over my shoulder.
Annabelle sat propped against the wall. She had one hand pressed against a hole in her stomach, the edges burnt and blackened. I recognized Mom’s handy work.
My jaw ached from grinding my teeth. I stood slowly, went to Annabelle, loomed over her.
“She got you, bitch.”
“Yeah,” she croaked, smiling. “She’s one hardcore sorcerer. Good thing the kid broke one of the chairs. That piece of wood sure came in handy.”
The edges of my vision turned red. I heard my blood rushing in my ears. I put out a foot and shoved the toe of my boot into the hole in her belly.
She slammed the back of her head against the wall and screamed. Then her eyes flared. A flash of red lit up a pentacle hung around her neck. She held out one hand like a claw and swept it aside.
The next thing I knew, I was flying sideways until I bounced against the wall. I hit the shoulder that I had landed on outside. Pain cut through the magic I’d been using to keep the agony at bay. I dropped to the floor, the breath blasted out of my lungs. I gasped for air, looking up to see Annabelle on her feet.
Odi had moved Mom off his lap and started for Annabelle. She threw her head back and laughed, then jammed her hand out in a fist. That red light gleamed through her necklace again. Odi flew straight back out the shattered window. I heard a collective gasp from the onlookers outside, then the hard crunch of a body hitting pavement.
I growled like an animal and got to my feet. My left arm hung limp at my side. The pain crackled like glass embedded in my muscle. I felt it. But at the same time, I didn’t.
Annabelle peeled her lips back in a grim smile. Blood stained her teeth and turned her lips a deep red. She was bleeding from the inside. I didn’t care if she was a Maiden of Shadow or not. She was hurt. This evened the odds. I would take that bitch out if it was the last thing I ever did.
She seemed to read the thoughts in my eyes. She shook her head. “You really think you can take on—”
I flung a ball of blue flame at her.
Her eyes went wide. She managed to raise her hand, palm out toward the incoming blast. A flicker of red light touched her necklace. But not enough, not fast enough. The fire hit her and spun her around in a clumsy pirouette. She fell to the floor, one side of her in flames. She lay on her back, and despite the flesh on her arm blackening and peeling away, she arched her back and cackled again.
I glanced at Mom. A part of me thought maybe, just maybe I’d been wrong. That she would sit up, maybe give that bitch Annabelle another blast of her own magic. But Mom lay as still as ever. And that shard of wood in her chest stuck out like an insult directed straight at me.
I growled through my clenched teeth and turned back to Annabelle.
Her laugh had ripped apart and started to sound more like a scream. My fire had spread. Some of her black hair had caught fire. Her sleeve was totally gone now, and I could see bone in the charred hollows along her arm. Despite all of this, she rolled over and got to her knees.
“No,” I said and stalked toward her. I used my power to kill my own flames. Smoke wafted off her blistering skin. The smell turned my stomach. I grabbed her by her burnt arm and hauled her to her feet.
She cried out in pain. When she tried to pull away, I tightened my grip, sinking my fingers into her softened, puckering flesh. She cried out again and went limp.
But I held her up long enough to throw her up against the wall and pinned her there with my forearm against her chest.
As her screams faded to a whimper, I realized something obvious that I’d been too angered to notice at first. None of Annabelle’s coven buddies had come to save her.
“Where are the rest of you?”
Annabelle blinked drunkenly. The corner of her mouth quirked. “Long gone. Off to enjoy the spoils of their victory.”
“What did you do?”
“What we were hired to do.” Blood gurgled from her mouth, making her voice stuffy and liquid. “We murdered every top ranking member of your precious Ministry. It was a spell to behold. You should have seen how brightly your soul burned right before we unleashed the curse.”
My stomach felt like it had dropped to the floor. I backed away, shaking my head. “You couldn’t have. That…all of them? That’s impossible.”
Annabelle’s little smirk curled up to a full, bloody smile. “Not if you have the proper ingredients. Just a little bit of something from each target. Our new friends supplied all we needed. The rest was up to us. And it turned out so much easier, thanks to you.”
A little bit of something from each target. Just like that little scrap of clothing Horton had held during the ritual I had interrupted, only on a horrifyingly larger scale.
My emotions tore loose from what little control remained. The wind through the shattered window suddenly blew harder, swirling into the room, fluttering a Pink Floyd poster on the wall, then ripping it loose, gaining speed, making the furniture wobble. The couch tipped over. The broken chair Annabelle had killed Mom with, a flimsy old wooden thing, flew across the room and broke apart into even smaller pieces.
What wasn’t burnt away of Annabelle’s short black hair rippled in the breeze. And it blew that smug smile off her face.
She held up a hand to keep the wind out of her eyes.
My body grew incredibly warm, beyond any natural fever. I felt the heat continue to gather around me. Then blue flame enveloped me from head to toe.
I stepped forward and grabbed Annabelle around the throat. She screamed as my fiery touch burned through her.
Then I smashed my body against hers, pinning her to the wall while the flame surrounded us both. Only she didn’t have control over its heat like I did. The blue flame burned so hot, her fleshed melted away like wax. I could feel it sloughing over my arms, oozing into my shirt and pants. I embraced her until there was nothing left but a charred skeleton.
It took a great deal of effort to let go of my fire. It took no effort at all to throw her sk
eleton down and stomp it to blackened bits, kicking up dust that smelled of coal.
A hand touched my back.
I stopped crushing what was left of Annabelle and spun around.
Fiona stood there in human form, naked. Tears streaked her face. She reached out to touch me.
I pulled back. “Get away from me.”
She didn’t push the issue. She nodded and backed off.
I went back to Mom and knelt at her side. I pulled her head into my lap. All the pain and weariness attacking my body faded away. I stroked her cheek and tried to say something, but my voice cracked into a sob.
Hurried footsteps rushed into the room.
Odi came to a halt and looked around at the scene. He blanched at the sight of the crumbled black bits that used to be Annabelle. “Is that…?”
“Yes,” Fiona whispered. “And good riddance.”
I returned my focus to Mom. My throat closed. Tears blurred my vision. I hadn’t had her back long enough. I had just gotten her back. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be!
But no matter how long I looked down at her, reality never changed. She was gone. This time for good.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
What remained of the Ministry did not have the organization necessary to cover up paranormal events like usual. I carried my Mom away from the ruins of our battle with the Maidens of Shadow, leaving behind a mess law enforcement and even the people who had seen it go down first hand would never be able to explain.
I didn’t care.
Stuff like that wasn’t my problem.
After burying Mom in a small cemetery at the edge of the city that catered to those in our world, I spent one day locked up in my house, spending most of that time staring at the bottle that held Sly’s soul. I’d had his body released to the same cemetery that had taken care of Mom. They had ways of covering for paranormal contingencies. Like erasing all records of Sly’s death. Or, per my instructions, magically preserving his body instead of burying it.
Turned out Elaine knew a way to imbue a soul to a host body, and since this host body was the one who rightfully owned the soul, Gladys the white witch agreed to help.
They refused to let me in on the ritual. Too much negative energy, they claimed. And they weren’t wrong.
I waited at home, expecting them to call me with the results. I expected the conversation not to go well. I expected the ritual not to work. But I’d fucked things up too much in my effort to bring Sly back not to at least try.
I waited seven hours without a phone call.
Then I heard a knock at my door.
I took my time answering. The only reason they hadn’t called was because they wanted to let me down easy in person.
When I opened the door, I broke into a breath-stealing series of sobs.
Sly stood on my doorstep. His clothes were all wrong. He had on a pair of gray sweatpants and matching sweatshirt under a puffy parka with a fur-lined hood. The lines in his face looked deeper than I remembered. Fatigue clouded his eyes. But what could I expect from someone newly arisen from death?
“Hey, brother.”
I grabbed him by the lapels of his parka and pulled him into a hug. Cold wind blew in through the open door. I didn’t care. I cried like a baby, my face stuffed against his shoulder. To his credit, Sly kept his arms around me until I was ready to let go.
I brewed some coffee for us and we sat on the couch in the living room. I could tell he had questions, a lot of them, but he showed more patience than I deserved and waited until I had pulled myself together.
Then I told him everything, starting with him getting sick while we were fixing up his shop and all the way through to the showdown with the Maidens.
He kept quiet and let me tell it without a single interruption.
When I was done, he sat quietly, coffee mug cupped in his hands. He gazed out the front window. It had started snowing that morning, and a good three inches blanketed the ground by now.
“I’m not sure what to say.” His face was pinched. “That’s a lot to take in.”
“I know.”
“I’m gonna…gonna need some time.” He set his mug on the coffee table and stood. He grabbed his parka and threw it on.
I set my own mug aside and stood. “Where are you going?”
He seemed to think it over a minute. “I’m going to visit Judith’s grave,” he said. “Then I’m going to go home and get high. I’ll probably have a good cry. I’ll binge watch some stupid sitcom on Netflix. After that? I don’t know.”
“Sly, I…”
He waved a dismissive hand. “Just need some time. Probably best you keep your distance for a while.”
“Sly, don’t. I’m all alone here.”
“You’ve got Odi. The Unturned and his vampire side-kick can go tear shit up. Just leave me out of it.”
“Are you angry with me?”
He shook his head and didn’t answer. He zipped up his parka and headed for the door.
“I never meant for any of this to happen,” I said. The words left a greasy taste in my mouth.
He stood at the door, his back to me. “I’m sure, brother. But it did. You ended up trading your mom’s life for mine.”
“No,” I said. “That’s not—”
“What you meant to do. I know. But it’s how it ended up.”
He opened the door. A gust of bitter wind blew in a dusting of snow. He slipped out and shut the door behind him.
I was left with silence, except for the howl of the wind as it buffeted the house.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
I stood at my mother’s grave site. The earth was still turned, a lump of soil over one of the greatest women to ever grace this world. And here I was, the most unworthy son.
I knelt beside her gravestone and touched its cool surface. I had tried my best with the engraving above her name. I was no poet.
“Here lies a loving mother, a devoted wife, and a bright Light in a dark world.”
Tears welled in my eyes as my fingers slid along the smooth stone. My throat was swollen with a sob I didn’t want to let loose. I had shed so many tears over the past week it hurt to cry, burned my eyes and ached in my chest.
“I will make this right,” I whispered. “I will find them.”
The words sounded so hollow. So what if I found the remaining Maidens of Shadow? What would I accomplish? Would killing them bring Mom back?
No.
But it would slake the rage that burned in me hotter than any fire I’d ever conjured. It would bring justice where justice seldom reached. I would ignite a pyre for the witches. The flames would provide a new light for the one this dark world had lost.
I sensed a presence behind me. It was after dark, so I had a feeling I knew who had joined me.
I stood and turned.
Odi had his hands jammed in the pockets of his jeans. His wounds had fully healed. His eye had even grown back.
He didn’t have a coat on. Just his flannel, which fluttered in the chilly January wind. Vampires didn’t get cold.
I had on my wool pea coat, but I had left it unbuttoned. The wind didn’t bother me either. I had so much anger inside of me, I could have melted the snow on the ground.
“Hey,” he said.
I swallowed the knot in my throat. “Hey. Did you run all the way here?”
He shrugged. “I run pretty fast. A perk of being a vampire.” His gaze searched me for a second. “I heard you, you know. What you said to her.”
I looked back at Mom’s grave. “Yeah, so?”
“So, I want to help you. I want to find them, too.”
I studied him, wondering what he thought he was saying. Did he understand what I meant to do? Or did he think I only meant to retrieve my soul? Because at that point I couldn’t have given a damn about my soul.
“What happens now,” I said, “could get… No. Will get ugly. Vicious.”
He nodded. “Fine.”
“You
don’t have to do this. I can take care of it on my own.”
“No, you can’t. And even if you could, I don’t care. Your mom was good to me. She didn’t…didn’t hold my condition against me. Not when it counted.”
I took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. My breath steamed in the cold air. “I’m going to kill them, Odi. Maybe fast. Maybe slow. But either way, I plan on being brutal.”
He raised his chin. “Good.”
“Okay.” I turned back to the grave and kneeled. I pressed my hand against her gravestone again. “We’ll find them. We’ll do what’s right.”
Then I rose to my feet again, turned to Odi, and tilted my head toward my car parked on the blacktopped road that wound its way through the cemetery. “We start looking tonight,” I said. “And we don’t stop until they are all gone.”
CONSUMED
Unturned: Book Five
Chapter One
I called on the wind and blew the glass out of the restaurant's front door, leaving nothing but its metal frame.
It was midnight in March. The temp during the day had topped out at sixty-five. Now, it was about mid-fifties, the cool air a little damp from a lingering fog. I had on a short-sleeve t-shirt, but had thrown on a leather duster—a new style I was trying out, popular with some wizards, I guess. It felt a little too heavy for my tastes. I'd probably trade it in for one without so much tail.
The restaurant was supposed to be a Polish joint, but it had a gold-colored awning that looked kind of like a pagoda. I crossed under the awning and stepped through the door frame. My boots crunched on the shattered glass on the floor inside. A small vestibule with a coat rack blocked the rest of the restaurant from view, but I could hear panicked chatter around the corner. When I stepped out from the vestibule, I found a trio of men standing by a round table toward the back, their chairs scooted away haphazardly as if they had popped to their feet in a hurry.
The room smelled of pierogies and mashed potatoes. While the restaurant had closed at ten, some of the pots in the long buffet along the right side still steamed.
I grinned and nodded at the bottle of vodka on the table. “Hey, guys. You save some for me?”