Two Halves Series (69 page)

Shivers run through my body. A cold chill climbed from the bottom of my spine.

“This is not the end,” the warden slurred. He sucked back on the saliva that hung out of his mouth. He bellowed a ghostly laugh and focused on a body that lay face down on the floor. The legs bent and black cloak rose up, revealing platform shoes.

One of the two vampire guards.

That’s when I noticed the empty metal bed and me hanging over someone’s shoulder. The grey linoleum floor turned crimson with splattered blood. Lightheaded, I knew I was on the brink of death. If I’d only close my eyes, my soul would find a way out of this body. The sound of a hacking chainsaw behind me rung in my eardrums. My limbs bopped up and down in the motion of calculated swings. The shaking of my captor’s shoulders vibrated mine, and I didn’t want to turn to see what he was doing. I smelled burnt flesh and dead blood.

I tried to pick up my head again but couldn’t. It would take too much strength so my gaze remained on the lower part of the room. The warden’s ghost flew toward the corpse lying on the floor. I saw his smirk, and just before he reached for the new host, I closed my eyes, choosing to leave my body. When the limpness returned, my ghost hovered over the table where I’d been tied a few moments ago.

One of the two guards held my loose body over his shoulder while cutting the warden to pieces. The vampire’s head was still covered with the hood, his arms and cloak drenched in blood.

His guards turned on him.
The thought elated me for a moment, but this only meant we faced a new war against the vampires. How could I find the strength to fight my own kind?

Below, the warden began to enter the lifeless body on the floor but bounced back. Confusion swept his face as he examined the corpse and pushed toward it again.

“No, you don’t.” I rushed at his ghost with as much speed as I could. My hands found his neck, and I pushed him off the body, through the wall, then the floor. My feet pressed harder against the floor, taking us below ground. New energy circled me. I smelled honey and lemon as yellowish mist enveloped me, and I wasn’t sure whether I smelled it or my body back on earth did. As a ghost, I felt oddly connected to the realm above.

As I tightened my grip, we passed earth, rocks, and an underground river before falling into a hall in the underworld. The landing broke my hold on the warlock, but we ended up exactly where I wanted us to. I backed toward the wall, letting my ghost disappear into it.

The warden leaped at me, but I moved out of the way and followed him into the room behind me that he fell into. Before he gathered himself, I shot up to the rooted ceiling and pulled out Miranda’s book of spells on the top of the table. The pages flipped by themselves, opening to a spell.

The warden’s ghost hovered back and forth in front of me, and I recognized confusion on his face. His gaze skimmed from me, to the book, then back to me again.

“This is a witch’s lair.” He circled around me, scanning the room, but I ignored him, knowing he’d figure out a way to recompose his thoughts. I couldn’t hesitate. The fireplace roared with fury, welcoming me back.

The letters on the opened page in the spell book glowed blue, and I read them.

The warlock launched at me again but was stopped before he reached me. His spirit faded from translucent to barely visible. I connected to my inner witch ancestors, continuing down the page. A gust picked up the dust in the room, spinning five tornadoes around the warlock. Each time he tried to grab me, his ghost vibrated until the magic spell tied his ghost to the ground.

“Silly, Sarah. This isn’t over. It has just begun. I will find a way to get your essence. After all, you’re all connected to the keepers,” he threatened.

The page of the book flipped, and I read the next glowing paragraph. Light flew out of my mouth toward the ceiling of the lair. It collected into an oval above the warden’s head and opened a portal.

As I finished the spell, the five funnels around the warden merged into one, spinning him upward, until he was sucked into the warp.

The dust settled. I lowered my shoulders.

The book shut, and I exhaled an unnecessary breath, making a mental note to remember to come back and get the book for Mrs. G.

In the far distance, I heard familiar voices reciting the same words over and over again. I hid the magic book back up in the roots. The chant became louder and louder, and I felt my ghost being pulled back up to earth. Giving into the hymn, I let my spirit follow the witches’ mantra, their repeated words beckoning me back to the prison. My ghost slammed into my slouched body, cradled in someone’s arms, and everything went black.

* * *

I opened my bleary eyes and stared at the blurred colors of what I recognized as the Tiffany lamp in my bedroom. My head no longer throbbed. I listened to my pulse as the heart in my chest thumped—my heart, as strong and vibrant as if I’d fed on ten mountain lions. I focused on my arm and the purple bruise on the bend of the elbow. A similar bruise was on my other arm. I sniffed the air.

“William?”

“Stay still.” He touched my shoulder.

I lowered my head back to the pillow. It felt so heavy it would sink between the feathers. I turned to the left to see William at my side, though he and almost everything else was still hazy. There was a fresh scar on his upper lip and another one on his brow. “What happened?”

“Nothing to worry about. It’s all been taken care of.”

I tried to remember what had happened at the prison, but nothing made sense. Had I been dreaming? Because lying here in my bed with William at my side seemed too good to be true. I expected to be dead. But the bruises on my arms wouldn’t lie. William had saved me somehow.

“They were all tied up. And drugged. Crystal and Ayer and your parents. Mira and Xander. They were all . . .” My pulse sped as if I’d run from here to Pinedale.

“Sarah, calm down. It was an illusion. He didn’t want you to have any hope.” He placed a wet cloth on my forehead. The coolness liberated the pulsing inside.

William’s soft words sounded like a fairy tale.
Was I dead?
He took my hand into his, the touch rejuvenating me.

“Illusion? You weren’t in the viewing room?”

“No.” He shook his head. “I was in the execution room, with you.”

“What?” I tried to remember, but my faint memory only provided me with the vampire who stood at my feet, waiting to use the saw to kill me, and the other demon. “I’d have smelled you.”

“No. You were drugged. And I ate so much garlic with peppermint leaves, it emanated from my pores. It’s a good thing the warden’s sense of smell was nonexistent.” William swooshed his tongue in his mouth, making a face as if he’d just eaten dirt.

“Was?” I perked up.

“He’s gone. He’ll never hurt anyone again.”

Never say never.
My quick thought evaporated as the pounding in my head began all over. “How?” I asked.

“We knew his plan. Crystal and Ayer had known about his scheming for some time now. They’ve been the only ones aware of his presence, even more so than his own brother, Aseret.”

“They couldn’t tell us?” I massaged my temples.

William pulled open a drawer beside the bed. “Here. Codeine. It should help.” He handed me two pills.

“Thank you.” I dipped my head back, swallowing them without water.

“If the warden sensed any kind of trouble, he’d flee. Finding him would have been more difficult than defeating Aseret. He was the smarter brother and would never give us the opportunity Aseret had given us. It’d be impossible to kill him. We had to trick the warden. The children had to send me away whenever he came close. In the clearing, when Aseret took his body, they couldn’t risk him seeing me up close, even through Aseret’s eyes. Otherwise we would never be able to infiltrate his prison. I’ve been working there for months now.”

“Months? And I didn’t know about it?”

“I’m sorry.” He lowered his head. “It was necessary at the time. I’d been instructed to keep it a secret so that our plan would work.”

My head still hurt. “And it worked? What day is it?”

William shook his head. “Relax, sweetheart. It’s been five days. The warden kept his business under lock and key, like his prisoners. And his planning and communications were more modern, unlike Aseret’s. Most of his dealings happened online.”

I had an insight. “Your iPad?”

“Yes, I was tracking him. With the twins’ help, we were able to devise a plan to destroy him. Something he’d never suspect.” He tapped his finger on the tablet in his lap.

“Did it have to come so close to me being dead?” I complained.

“He needed your soul. He wouldn’t show his true form unless there was a chance you’d be dead. It was the only way to make him transform into his demon form, something he had to do to take your essence away.”

A memory of Lucifer flashed in my mind, but the pain in my head took it away too quickly.

“Did he transform?” I asked.

“Yes.”

A vision of the warden’s soul zoomed through my mind, and I closed my eyes. Something about the mention of his soul stroke a chord inside me, but I couldn’t remember. My head throbbed.

“His soul. Has it been destroyed?”

“No.” William shook his head. “Mrs. G and Xela tried to find it, but somehow his spirit flew away from the prison too fast. And you were weak. Eric and the twins vortexed us back home.”

“So everyone is okay?” I asked.

“As well as they can be, yes.”

He was hedging. His heartbeat remained steady, but his delivery came too quickly, too smoothly; he had to have practiced what he’d say when I asked about my family.

I sat up. “You’re hiding something.”

“We’ll go see the others, but only if you’re feeling up to it.”

“I feel fine. Stronger than I should be.” I licked my lips, tasting the residue of the blood they must have fed me. Its iron tang covered the inside of my mouth. It sated me more than any other animal’s blood had in the past. Something between a baboon and perhaps an orangutan . . . But I was sure it was a different mammal.

Xander knocked on the door before peeking into our room. “William, it’s time.”

“Let me help you.” William put a supporting hand under my arm.

“Time for what?” I asked.

“If I tell you, you’ll panic. You need to see; it’s better this way.” He helped me off the bed, and I slipped my feet into the warmed slippers.

“What is?”

My heart raced. The thumping in my chest increased as I stepped out of our bedroom into the living room of our cabin. On my left, Mira sat in Eric’s lap on the arm chair, checking his bandaged neck. The red spots on the white fabric reminded me of an albino fly agaric mushroom. Mira’s face told me not to ask. I was more curious about the woman sitting on the couch beside Xander anyway.

“This is the real Xela.” Xander took her elbow, beaming with pride, as if he were presenting his bride.

Xela smiled with her original face, a genuine smile in a genuine face. She appeared younger in person. Life radiated from her, mostly toward Xander. The same black curls tumbled down her back and chest, a full chest in a tank top small enough to fit my daughter.

I looked to Crystal, absorbed in flipping through Mrs. G’s medicine notebook. Her eyes scanned each page, as if she were memorizing one after another. She wore a tank top that was, thankfully, right for her size. Ayer touched her shoulder, and I thought I saw words flow from Crystal’s arm through to Ayer’s hand. The mesh of black print travelled along their skin so quickly only they could read it.

You’re all right, Mama,
I heard them whisper in my head.

Everything will be all right now,
Crystal added, trying to soothe my feelings without touching me. It worked.

Atram sat on a corner of a bed that must have been dragged in from another room. On it, Willow lay on her side, her eyes closed, her skin pale. I rushed to her side, almost tripping in my haste. William caught me and helped me sit at her feet.

“She’ll be up soon,” my father-in-law whispered.

“Her heart isn’t beating,” I blurted, my voice high with panic as I touched her cold knee. That’s when I saw a puncture on her wrist which dangled off the side of the bed.

Atram picked up her hand and set it on the mattress.

“She’s not human?” I asked.

“No,” Atram said calmly. “A vampire. Still learning to adjust.”

“How?” I asked, then I saw a dark drop, the size of a pinhead, on her hand. I leaned forward and took a whiff, detecting the same iron tang I’d had in my mouth. “You let me drink from Willow? I killed her?”

“No, she’s alive.” Atram smiled. “Well, not the kind of alive you were used to, but she’ll be with us for a long time.”

I stood and swayed on my feet. William supported me as I stared at the faint smear of blood on her chin from a recent feed. How could they allow me to take a life? My insides twisted, and I fought against the urge to throw up my recent meal. My first human kill was my mother-in-law.

“She saved your life. You’d lost too much blood in the prison,” Atram explained.

“You let me feed on Willow?” I repeated.

“You would have died, Sarah. And human blood is still more potent than any serum we could invent,” William whispered in my ear.

I couldn’t stop looking at Willow’s pale skin. I blinked as my sight hazed and the room spun. William pushed an ottoman under my knees and I sat. “What happened? I saw everyone behind the mirror.”

“It was merely a magical illusion,” my husband reminded me.

“You weren’t there.”

“I was there, Sarah. Just not where you thought.” William held me tighter.

My hands started to tremble as the memories came back. More memories than I’d bargained for. “Ayer and Crystal knew.”

“Yes. The children brought you back home. Their knowledge as casters limits their physical abilities. They cannot meddle too much. The balance needs to be kept.”

Thank you,
I said to my children.

Always, Mama,
they replied.
Always.