by Zandria West
I will use the power of the Binding – that deep, magical connection I have with my men – to fuel the spell to remake the Barrier.
I will use my own life force to ensure the Barrier spell is strong, that it lasts for millennia, for longer than humanity can even imagine.
I will burn myself up in it, to prevent the Dark God’s return.
The End.
I expect to feel terrified at the idea of death, but right now, I just feel relieved. It’s like I’ve been trying to solve an impossible puzzle and finally all the pieces have clicked into place. I want to kick myself because it’s simple. So simple.
I close my eyes, relief sweeping through my body with a wave of exhaustion, washing me out into the infinite darkness of deep, deep sleep.
20
LANA
Bang. Bang. Bang.
I blink my eyes open. I have no idea how long I slept, or what time it is, or what day it is. It no longer feels like it matters.
‘Come in,’ I groan.
The door opens. I give Reuben a weak smile. Then I see the look on my werewolf’s face, and I frown.
‘He wants to speak to you. I can keep him out, if you like. It’s up to you, cub…’
Jamie. He’s standing right behind Reuben, glaring at me like we’re ten again and I just stole his favourite dessert.
‘No, it’s okay. Let him in.’
I sit up in bed. My strength is returning, though with it comes a hunger like I’ve never experienced before. This has nothing to do with the vampire Hunger that has risen in me with Alex. This is human-me wanting to go straight to the kitchen and eat every damn thing in sight.
How long is it since my last meal? Was breakfast yesterday or the day before? My stomach growls in anger at my feeble attempts at calculation. It doesn’t care how long, it just wants food.
‘It wasn’t me,’ Jamie says, taking a few steps towards the bed. His jaw is tense, his arms crossed defensively over his chest like he expects me to disagree and he’s ready for an argument. For a moment I have no idea what he’s talking about and then I realise – Garenda. I warned Graciela that Jamie would lead Garenda to us.
‘I know it wasn’t you,’ I say.
He narrows his eyes, like he can’t believe he’s going to get off that easily. He’s waiting for me to say something else, to blame him for something.
I nearly died, and all he’s worried about is arguing over whether or not it was his fault? That is peak Jamie. I don’t even have the energy to be angry at him for it.
‘Garenda had someone in the Circle passing her information,’ I offer, hoping that will appease him enough that he’ll go away and leave me alone.
‘You should tell your demon bodyguards,’ he says. ‘I thought they were going to kill me yesterday.’
I raise an eyebrow. Yeah, I can see how that might happen. The coincidence is highly suspicious. Jamie turns up. Garenda turns up. I almost die. That was pretty much how it went last time we were all together in the same place, too.
‘You’re still breathing. If they’d tried to kill you, you wouldn’t be.’
‘Graciela warned them off, and Gabriel kept them in check,’ he sneers and shakes his head.
‘Good. I know it wasn’t your fault,’ I say. ‘Though you can probably understand why they might think that it was.’
‘I haven’t even seen that fucking bitch since she almost skinned you alive.’
‘You know what the problem is Jamie,’ I say, slowly. ‘It’s not what you did under the influence of Garenda. It’s everything else. You haven’t been a brother to me. Not for a long time. I gave you chance after chance. I’ve forgiven and excused so much. Not anymore. You’re a stranger to me. When all this is over…’
I had been going to say that when all this is over, I never want to see him again. Then the realisation hits me that when all this is over, I’ll be gone, and it won’t matter what I thought of my dickhead of a brother.
There’s a long moment of silence.
‘You think you’re going to die when you cast the spell, don’t you?’ Jamie says, his eyes widening as he studies me more closely.
I swallow and look away. I don’t say anything. I don’t owe my brother anything – not honesty, not truth, not intimacy. His life and mine are two separate tracks running in opposite directions. The fact that we share blood and history is all but meaningless.
He shakes his head. I expect him to leave now. He’s said what he wanted to say. I’ve said what I wanted to say. He’s managed to leave me feeling raw and uncomfortable, something he’s long had a knack of doing.
Instead, he sits down on the edge of my bed. I shift away from him. I sense Reuben just on the other side of the door, listening with the intentness of a wolf guarding his mate. One word, one cry and he’d burst through and tear my brother into bloody pieces.
‘So, this is all for real?’
‘It’s not a fucking game, Jamie.’
‘I never really understood why Dad put all that effort into digging up useless old pieces of junk,’ he says, shaking his head.
‘Those useless old pieces of junk were unique, priceless artefacts,’ I remind him. ‘And he was hoping one of them would save the world.’
‘Graciela told me Dad was looking for the Key. The thing that will make the Barrier again, that will keep our world safe from the demon scum.’ Jamie isn’t looking at me anymore, but off into the distance.
I nod. I don’t have the energy to argue with his wording. ‘Yep. That’s right.’
‘And he found it. Or they did. And it was you.’
I supress a sigh at how slowly my twin is putting all the pieces together.
‘Yes. As I told you. Repeatedly,’ I say.
‘So now I get it. That’s why you were the way you were,’ he says finally, turning and looking at me. ‘I knew it all along. You were different.’
‘You’ve reminded me of that often enough,’ I say. Jamie’s views on being different had been a constant theme in recent years.
‘I don’t mean like that, I mean – special.’
I snort. ‘If by special you mean unlikely to see my twenty-second birthday, then yes. That’s me. Super special.’
He shakes his head, a sudden look of anger flushing his face. ‘That’s not what I mean. I just mean, you always saw things differently…’
‘And you always chose to only see what you wanted to see.’
‘God, you are so fucking dense. Don’t you get it, Lana? I’m trying to say something nice to you.’
A bit late for that, I think. But for once, instead of turning away, I turn and really look at him. My brother. My twin. He’s different to how I remember. Older. Harder. There’s something closed off in his expression. I just can’t read him.
‘Jamie,’ I say.
He nods, frowning.
‘Can you do something for me?’
He glares at me, suspiciously. ‘What?’
My stomach growls like a jungle cat is prowling the room.
‘Can you please get me something to eat. I’m fucking starving.’
21
ALEX
‘Well, this is… unusual.’ I look from one end of the long table where Graciela is seated to the other where Jamie glowers.
Lana sits just down from me, pale and quiet. I can feel snippets, little snapshots of thought and feeling, but something is different since I fished her out of that damned lake. There are walls between us that I’ve never felt before. I wonder again what happened to her. I know better than to push, though. Pushing will only make the walls taller and thicker and more immovable. I have to give her time. The problem is we have so little time remaining. Who knows whether we’ll all get to sit at a table together like this again? Tomorrow at dawn, Lana must attempt to remake the Barrier. A shiver of fear moves through me.
Lana’s too quiet.
I miss her snorting and cursing and enthusiastically arguing with just about anyone over just about everything.
&n
bsp; I miss her.
Though it’s shut her down in some ways, the close encounter with death does seems to have amplified her appetite. I watch in fascination as Lana stuffs one thing after another into her mouth. Roast vegetables. Meat. Bread. Cheese. Little pastries filled with a different kind of cheese. Some kind of spicy casserole made of beans that I understand is a local speciality.
As a vampire, food doesn’t hold much interest for me. But even so, I can see that Graciela has gone to a great effort. She has both of her children beside her. They haven’t killed each other yet, though it has been a near thing. The prophecy of Izushi has finally been fulfilled. I guess she sees it as a cause for celebration.
‘Haven’t you ever seen a woman eating before?’ Irena deadpans.
Lucky me, I got to sit next to Irena. She’s glaring at me for watching Lana eat.
‘Have you ever seen a vampire eat before?’ I counter, smiling coldly at her, giving her a look that I hope is unnerving.
She doesn’t blanch like I’d hoped, just rolls her eyes and shakes her head.
‘There’s a pig tied up out the back. Have at it, just make sure you wash before you come back into the house. I’m sure you’d be the type who’d drip blood everywhere and expect someone else to clean up after you.’
I laugh. ‘Pig’s blood. How thoughtful. I must say, I prefer something sweeter…’
‘Jesus Christ, can you please stop,’ Jamie curses, looking at me and then at his mother as though she might intercede.
I put my hands up. ‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to offend your delicate sensibilities, Jamie. Enjoy that seared lamb’s flesh you’re chewing on. Nice and pink. Gosh is that blood dripping down your chin? Disgusting, really, some people’s eating habits…’
Jamie growls. It’s not a Reuben-like growl, you don’t feel it in the centre of your chest. It’s more like the noise that might be made by one of those small dogs that thinks it can take on a German Shepherd and win.
‘Jamie!’ Lana snaps.
Jamie gives me a long, hard look then turns back to his food.
‘Probably a mistake, inviting a vampire to dinner,’ Irena says to nobody in particular.
‘And here’s me thinking I’m being the epitome of politeness. Watching. Not biting.’
Lana glares at me, though I see the first hint of a smile that she’s worn all day. My heart races at the sight. ‘Alex, stop it. I’ll feed you later,’ she says.
‘You’ll what?’ For the first and probably only time in the history of the universe, Jamie and I say exactly the same thing at exactly the same time.
I swallow. Okay, so I can’t help the fact that just Lana speaking those words is causing an intense ache in my jaw and crotch simultaneously. Fuck, the taste of her blood, so rich, so sweet, so powerful…
‘That is fucking disgusting,’ Jamie says, looking from me to her with a daggered gaze. ‘You’re an animal, you know that?’
‘James,’ Graciela says sternly.
For a moment everybody shuts up. I find myself studiously examining the reflections of candelight on the glass in front of me, so as to avoid Graciela’s eyes.
‘Alex, Lana. I don’t care what you do, so long as you don’t stain the sheets and you both have enough energy for tomorrow,’ she says calmly.
Irena snorts and I feel the strangely unaccustomed sensation of a blush moving up my neck and into my face. Really. There’s nothing quite so uniquely humiliating as being given permission, at the dinner table, by your lover’s witch-mother to drink her daughter’s blood.
‘Ah, thank you,’ I say, figuring it’s the only safe response at this stage.
I look up and find Lana watching me across the table. Her gaze burns through me, it’s so full of longing and desire. I can almost taste her blood on my tongue. I clear my throat awkwardly.
There’s what is from my perspective a very uncomfortable silence as Grayson helps Graciela clear the table and serve dessert, which is some kind of pudding piled with tropical fruit and lashings of fresh cream. Lana takes a Reuben-sized serving and begins eating.
Irena shakes her head admiringly and helps herself to a smaller portion.
‘Well, I have to admit, it’s going to be less fun once the spell’s done tomorrow and you’re all somewhere else…’ Irena says smiling, almost sweetly.
I feel a sudden rush of terror at her words. I have been trying, for Lana’s sake, to push the fear away, to put aside all thoughts of the future, so that we can just enjoy this night together.
‘Oh, that reminds me,’ Jamie says. ‘I want to come with you tomorrow, when Lana does her Key thing.’ He looks across at his mother.
I raise an eyebrow. He’s not asking her, he’s telling her.
‘No,’ she says shortly. ‘That won’t be necessary.’
Jamie leans back in his chair. ‘You don’t trust me?’
‘It’s not that,’ Graciela says. ‘This is deep magic, not entertainment. We do not know exactly how the Barrier spell will manifest. There is no need to place anybody in danger who isn’t required. It would serve no purpose.’
‘Are you forbidding me?’ he asks.
I can almost see Graciela restraining an eye-roll. She may feel like she missed out on knowing Lana and Jamie as teenagers, but their behaviour around the dinner table tonight is giving her a great opportunity to experience what teenage life with the two of them might have been like.
‘You’re an adult, Jamie. You’re both adults. It’s not my place to forbid you to do anything. I would have thought you’d have understood that by now.’
‘I’m coming then,’ he says, determinedly.
‘Why?’ Grayson’s voice is like a shard of ice, cutting through any remnants of warmth at the table. ‘Why do you wish to come?’
‘What is it to you?’ Jamie gives him an outright glare. I raise an eyebrow. Does the boy have a death wish?
‘I am responsible for protecting your sister,’ Grayson says.
‘And I’ve seen what a top job you’ve done of that,’ Jamie says.
‘Tell me why you wish to come.’ The tone of angelic command in Grayson’s voice is only a fragment of what I have heard in the past, but in these close quarters it’s enough to make Jamie squirm like a frightened child in his chair.
‘I –’ he begins.
‘Enough!’ Graciela declares. ‘Grayson, you will not use your powers under my roof, without my consent. Jamie, you will not insult my guests.’
‘My apologies, Graciela.’ Grayson casts his eyes down and looks genuinely remorseful. It’s only because I know him as well as I do that I recognise the way his hands are clenched into fists, the tightness around his shoulders and neck that indicate he’s having to restrain himself from acting out the dark rage that I’ve always thought of as the Angel’s Shadow. Sure, he’s got a glowing full-body halo that pops up from time to time, but every light comes with some darkness. His is deeper and more terrifying than just about any I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen some dark things in my time.
Jamie should consider himself lucky that as well as his mother, there are three of us there who would probably intervene and prevent Grayson from tearing him limb to limb; though as I look at the expression on Reuben’s face I wonder whether he’d take so long weighing up the options that Jamie would be dead before he’d decided if he felt like helping or not.
Jamie takes a breath and then lets it out, hissing through his teeth. ‘Look. I want to see what happens, that’s all. I know that Lana’s special. I know she’s the Key. This… quest… it’s taken over our lives. It ate up our father. It took you away from us,’ Jamie is looking directly at Graciela as he speaks. ‘I just want to be there, to be part of it, after everything we’ve been through.’
I see Graciela soften.
‘Alright. As you wish, Jamie.’
22
ALEX
‘Well that was quite a dinner,’ I sigh as I stretch myself out on the bed. I’m trying to act as though this is just some normal
night together, like if I can pretend hard enough, I can make it true.
We’re all here. I don’t think any of us are prepared to let Lana out of our sight. The pull of the Binding is very strong – the need to protect her, to keep her close. But more than that, I sense our combined nervousness about what is coming. Everything changes tomorrow. We’d be fools not to know that. Whatever happens, whatever the outcome, nothing will be the same.
Reuben is sitting on the floor, his back to the door. His eyes are closed. I’d think that he was asleep if it wasn’t for the fact that I can sense his alertness through the Binding. He’s listening. Waiting. Ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice.
‘Can you try to chill please, Benji?’ I say. ‘You’re making me tense.’ I exchange a glance with Gabriel.
‘Lana’s safe, Reuben,’ he concurs. ‘You can relax for tonight at least. The spell that Graciela and I cast is like nothing I’ve ever encountered before. Demon armies themselves couldn’t pass through it.’
‘I’m not worried about demon armies. I was listening for her spineless turd of a brother,’ Reuben growls.
‘I don’t think you need to worry about Jamie,’ I say. ‘He wouldn’t cause any trouble. Not with all four of us here.’
Lana curls up beside me, resting her head on my lap. I wish that I could freeze time. This moment. This weight of her body against mine. This stroking of my fingers against her skin. This is all I want, forever.
‘So…’ Lana says slowly, looking up to me with those beautiful clear blue eyes. And as she says that one word, I realise that this is not all I want forever.
I want more.
I want blood.
‘So…’ Lana says again, wriggling even closer to me. ‘The rest of us had a lovely dinner. You know how I hate to think of you going hungry, Alex…’