Beautiful nightmares, p.67
Beautiful Nightmares, page 67
“Watch your head,” I muttered. She followed me down the narrow, wooden stairs.
Collith, Laurie, and Lyari came into view first, and I could tell instantly from their postures that something was wrong. When I reached the bottom step, I saw why—the demon had regained consciousness. It sat very still as we entered the space, those black eyes cataloging our every move.
Savannah halted, and I glanced over at her. She’d gone pale. Her attention was glued to the iron handcuffs.
“Those won’t hold it,” she whispered, shaking her head. Her cloak flared as she darted over to a metal shelf—it was where Cyrus stored items that didn’t fit in the garage. One of those items was a battered-looking box of chalk. Savannah plucked two pieces out, her hands trembling. But there wasn’t any unsteadiness in her voice as she ordered, “Quickly, go on that side, draw exactly what I do. Hurry.”
The demon must’ve sensed it was in danger, because it began to yank at the chains, snarling. It writhed on its belly like a worm. The three faeries in the room stood with weapons drawn, their expressions making it clear they wouldn’t hesitate to act, even if it meant hurting Finn. Desperate to stop that from happening, I rushed to follow Savannah’s instructions. She chanted in the angelic tongue, words I’d never heard or read, her voice as loud and certain as a clanging bell.
She kept chanting once the circle was drawn. The spell isn’t complete, I thought. Savannah needed more time. I hurried to stand in front of the demon and hold its attention.
“Who is your master?” I spat. “Who do you and Belanor serve?”
The demon didn’t answer. Instead, Finn’s mouth stretched… downward, somehow. It gave his face alien, unnatural proportions. I watched with dim horror as his lips gaped, revealing a swirling darkness inside him.
The scream that came out of him was like nothing I’d ever heard before. Savannah and I cried out as we both covered our ears, collapsing to our knees. But our chalk boundary worked—the iron handcuffs came apart like taffy, and when the demon launched itself at us, it was as though it slammed into an invisible wall.
The creature’s enraged scream went on and on. A powerful, inexplicable wind rushed through the room. Savannah shouted in Enochian again, her hair and her cloak flying, making her look like some ancient witch from a story. Lyari, Laurie, and Collith all gathered around me, forming a barrier with their bodies that blocked Savannah and the demon from my sight. I tried to push between them, wanting to go to Finn.
An instant later, the window shattered and glass sprinkled over the concrete.
Then the lights went out.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
An entire day passed. Then, two. I never went to sleep, and the only time I left Finn’s side was to see to my basic needs.
After the demon had taken ownership of Finn’s body and cast us into darkness, Savannah’s magic took hold, and the creature passed out again. The unnatural wind stopped and that terrible scream ended. My chest heaved, and I stared at Finn’s lax face, relieved to see it had returned to normal proportions. Savannah’s spell, whatever it was, had worked—a sleeping spell, I’d learn later.
We didn’t let the demon regain consciousness.
Over the following days, the rest of my family stayed at Danny’s. Their absence didn’t mean I was alone, though. Savannah returned every three hours with a fresh supply of monkshood, an herb more commonly known as wolfsbane. She used it to keep Finn’s body weak and buy us time. If he were human, the herb probably would have stayed in his body for twice as long, but Finn burned through it at a preternatural rate, which was why we replaced the handcuffs he’d broken as a precaution. Savannah also brought a sedative of the human variety, courtesy of Zara, who sent me her regards. I mentally added it to the debt I already owed her.
Whenever she wasn’t at the house, Savannah spent every spare moment looking for an exorcism spell. They were less common than human media depicted, and she had never learned how to do one, she told us once the demon was subdued again. Mercy, of course, wasn’t answering her phone.
Lyari, too, made constant appearances. She brought care packages from Emma. She forced me to stand and go through swordplay exercises with her. She brought a deck of cards and taught me a game the Guardians played during their dungeon shifts. We set up two camping chairs that day, which became the chair I practically lived in as I watched over Finn.
If Collith and Laurie ever came back, I didn’t see them. Every once in a while, though, I thought I caught a scent that made me think of a garden in summertime. Other times, the scent was a crisp spring breeze. Once, I turned from the washer, where I’d been putting in a new load, and found a black rose resting on a pile of folded clothes.
They were looking for exorcism spells. All of them. Lyari never said a word, but I knew.
On the afternoon of the third day, silence pressed down on me like a weight. Wind pushed against the cardboard I’d taped over the broken window. Back in the camping chair, I picked up my phone for the millionth time and unlocked the screen. Instead of clicking on the messages icon—everyone continued to send updates, and I’d been checking the group text constantly, which we started the day I came home—I opened a music app.
Before I could do anything else, a video from Damon appeared in the group chat. I pressed the small triangle, and Matthew’s face filled the screen. His apple-red cheeks wrinkled as he beamed. “Tell Auntie ’Tuna you miss her,” Damon’s voice encouraged.
Matthew pulled at the corner of his mouth with one finger. “Miss you, Tuna Fish!”
A bubble of spit popped, startling him. Then Matthew giggled, and Damon made a playful sound of dismay. My shoulders shook with silent laughter. It was the first time I’d laughed in days, but then my attention flicked to Finn, and the lightness in my chest quickly sank down again. The silence rushed back. Desperate to fill it, I reopened the music app.
I was browsing playlists when Finn stirred and mumbled something. It sounded like my name. I scrambled over to him, flattening against the floor so our faces were at the same level. I’d taken to wearing the Glock in a holster on my hip, and I reached down to remove it, allowing me to stay close to Finn. I still clutched my phone in the other hand as I whispered, “Finn? Can you hear me?”
Shit, I thought. What if he’d already burned through the sedatives?
The werewolf opened bloodshot eyes, and when he looked at me, I knew it was really him. Bright relief rushed through me, the edges of it tinged with shadow. My Finn was sad, and that sadness was in everything he did. I saw it now, peering out at me from the depths of his gaze. It was a pain no demon could replicate.
Finn still hadn’t answered me, and I wondered if he was fighting the creature’s hold on him. A distraction was all I could offer. I hid a flash of self-loathing at the thought. Right now, Finn was all that mattered.
“What did you want to talk to me about?” I asked him now, pressing my fingers at the very edge of the chalk. “The other morning. You started to say that you wanted to talk to me.”
Finn nodded, his cheek scraping against the concrete. He ignored the plate of food resting nearby. “Dragonfire,” he rasped. “The dragon… he said you asked him to…”
It only took me a moment to figure out what he was trying to say—Finn was asking about the day I’d ended up in the hospital. We hadn’t talked about it, I realized as I shifted on the floor, trying to hide my distress. In all the time that had passed since the terrible day I’d made my unforgivable request to Cyrus, Finn and I had never actually acknowledged it. We’d started to, but I’d let my pain and fear get in the way.
I swallowed the shame rising up my throat. “That was wrong of me. In more ways than one,” I told him.
Finn visibly struggled for a moment. Then he managed to say, the words guttural and halting, “Promise me. Promise you won’t…”
“I promise,” I said. I didn’t hesitate, despite the bloody lessons I’d learned these past few months. Actions and choices had consequences, even ones like this. Promises were heavy things, and few people were truly prepared to carry the weight of them. Myself included.
But my wolf had been trying to protect me for so long, and at every turn, I’d done the opposite of what a pack member should. I swallowed and added, “No more deals with demons, no more dragonfire. No more trouble in general. From now on, I’ll behave.”
Finn’s eyes softened. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep. You like getting into trouble, I think.”
It took me a moment to realize that he’d actually made a joke. It was weak, but a joke nonetheless. A smile bloomed across my face. I put my hand next to his, our pinkies almost touching. My mind raced to think of a new topic. Something that would bring him hope and combat the darkness inside.
“We’ve never talked about it, you know,” I ventured gently. “About what you want to do after this, I mean. Damon is going back to school and Emma is thinking about opening a dispensary, God help us all. But what about you, Finn? What are your dreams?”
“You,” he whispered, his eyes closing. “Just you.”
I smiled and dared to touch his cheek with the tip of my finger. Finn didn’t move. “You can’t follow me around for the rest of your life.”
“Why not?” he asked, still not looking at me.
I drew my hand back over the chalk boundary. “Because you deserve more, silly wolf.”
“I know what I deserve.” Finn’s voice sounded less pained now. Less faint. He opened his eyes, and they were sharper than before. Unease crept through my veins, but I still wasn’t prepared when he said, “I want to make the Blood Vow.”
I didn’t pretend to misunderstand. The thought of binding someone else to me, even Finn, created a knot of anxiety in my stomach. “It doesn’t mean anything, Finn,” I insisted. “What Gil and I share was a result of desperation and fear. I was just trying to stop a newborn vampire from killing—”
His eyes turned black again, and a jolt of terror cut me short. I stared at him. Finn’s body quaked, and then his eyes were back to brown. “Can’t fight it much longer,” he growled.
At some point, I’d risen to my knees. When Finn started shaking again, I became frantic, my hands hovering near the chalk boundary. Words spilled out of me, mindless. “Let’s make a deal, okay? Hey, are you listening to me? I’ll exchange the Blood Vow with you if you keep fighting that thing. Savannah is looking for a way to get it out, so we just need to buy her some time.”
“Kill me,” Finn gasped, wrenching at the chains. “Kill me before I hurt you, Fortuna!”
The thud-thud-thud of footsteps burst through the stillness. A moment later, Savannah rushed past, crossing the chalk line at a sprint. She released a string of Enochian and slammed her knee down onto Finn. She crushed a fistful of wolfsbane into his snapping mouth, her wiry arms standing on end as he writhed. Once the herb practically covered the entire lower half of Finn’s face, Savannah threw herself backward.
“Sorry I’m late,” she panted. “I had to go farther for the monkshood this time. Good news is, I got a bigger haul, so it should buy us another day.”
I barely heard her; my eyes were glued to Finn. Fury ripped through me when he whimpered. Not at Savannah, but the demon causing so much torment. My hands clenched into helpless fists. I couldn’t do anything but watch as my friend twisted and flailed, his spine bending at unnatural angles.
After a few more agonizing seconds, Finn’s body slackened. I settled just outside of the circle again, and I could taste the bitter tang of tears on my tongue. I glared at Finn’s tense, slumbering face as if I could see the creature inside him.
“Are you listening to me, you pathetic worm?” I said the words in a whisper, but my voice shook with rage. “You will pay for this. You will pay for this.”
“Did I come at a bad time?”
I didn’t react at the sound of Laurie’s voice. “Not now,” I said flatly.
“I want to show you something,” he said above me, ignoring this. “Why don’t you take a break?”
Still, I didn’t move or take my eyes off Finn. I could see Savannah hovering near us. “I’m not leaving him, Laurie.”
“Zara always uses the good stuff—your werewolf won’t wake for hours yet.”
“I’ll stay with Finn, Your Majesty,” Lyari interjected.
When had she gotten here? I pushed myself up and turned in a burst of impatience, ready to argue. Lyari looked back at me with that same steadiness she always seemed to emanate, and the words in my throat faded. We both knew her word was as good as steel. Some of the tension left me, and I thought about how I’d hardly left this basement these past three days. Slowly, I tore my gaze from Lyari and refocused on the Seelie Prince, who was resplendent as ever in a suit of blue velvet. I gave him a barely perceptible nod.
His sharp eyes didn’t miss a thing. In an instant, he extended his hand toward me in a wordless urge. Let’s leave this place.
As I put my fingertips in the center of his palm, I thought of the firelit room we’d once shared. I shoved the memory back into the darkness, furious with myself for thinking of anything other than Finn, even for a second. He was going through this because of me. If he hadn’t met me, or become part of my life, Belanor never would’ve given my werewolf a second glance.
Walking past Lyari and Savannah, Laurie and I went upstairs. I was surprised when he didn’t sift. In the entryway, Laurie watched me pull on my coat and boots. Normally, I would find his lack of commentary unnerving. But not today. Not with what was happening in the basement below us.
Once I was ready, Laurie opened the door and moved aside. My shoulder brushed against his chest as I stepped into the cold. The sky overhead was a deep blue. The waning sunlight, as it burned through the spaces between trees, had the look of a hungry flame. All oranges, reds, and yellows. I shoved my hands into my pockets and started toward the path I’d once taken multiple times a day.
Laurie didn’t try to fill the silence. We walked beside each other, together and apart, and the only sounds were my footsteps over sheets of ice and stretches of hardened snow. The only sign of life we encountered was a small cabin, its edges alight with small lights.
It was almost Christmas, I remembered with a rush of dismay. I’d been so distracted that I hadn’t even begun thinking about presents, and this year there were a lot more people to shop for. Shit. What the hell was I going to get Gil? A year’s worth of hair gel, maybe?
“Any chance you’d like to go shopping with me, once all this is over?” I asked impulsively, stepping over a fallen tree covered in snow.
Laurie faltered. It was subtle, and he recovered swifter than my eyes could track, but I saw it.
“Are you asking me out on a date, Fortuna Sworn?” the faerie prince asked, looking over his shoulder with a grin.
The breezy way he phrased the question made it easy to back out. He was giving me a chance to reestablish the boundary of friendship between us. Somehow, in spite of the toe-curling sex we’d shared, that boundary had survived. It wasn’t too late to step back and face him from the other side.
I knew Laurelis Dondarte wanted me—I wouldn’t do us both the disservice of pretending otherwise, not anymore. But I was barely out of my early twenties. I’d just had my heart broken a few weeks ago. One of my best friends was currently being kept in a basement because he was possessed by a demon. I wasn’t ready to fully commit myself to another person, not when I was still figuring out how to be one myself.
“No,” I said finally, smiling back. “But I don’t hate your company. You might actually make a panicked, last-minute search for Christmas gifts fun.”
Laurie kept walking, the corner of his mouth tilted upward. But I couldn’t see enough of his face to discern whether he was hurt. “Of course I’ll go shopping with you,” he replied without turning. “I would never turn down an opportunity to improve someone else’s wardrobe. Your brother and Sir Nym are in desperate need of my services.”
My lips twisted in thought. “Let me get this straight,” I said after a moment. “Me, Damon, and Nym all need your help, but Emma hasn’t earned a spot on the list?”
“Mrs. Miller,” Laurie declared, “is perfect just the way she is.”
I laughed. The sound echoed around us, and Laurie smiled at me, his eyes the palest of blues in the twilight.
It felt like hours later when we reached the Unseelie Court. Laurie entered the darkness first, probably as a precaution, but no one bothered us in the tunnel. We emerged into another forest, this one less frozen. The trees were still bare, though, and our breaths were visible with every exhale.
The easiness between us had faded—neither of us fully trusted Viessa, I thought—as we’d been using the Door. Now tension crackled around us like electricity. Still, Laurie moved with the certainty of someone who’d been here many times before. He led me toward our mysterious destination, maintaining his strange silence the entire way. I would’ve asked where we were if I thought I’d get an answer.
By the time Laurie stopped, the world was more shadow than light. We stood at the very edge of the wood, and the sight of what existed beyond it made my anxiety give way to awe. Before us, gently sloping hills lapped toward the horizon, looking like the strangest of seas. Faint outlines of mountains stood just below the setting sun.
Laurie propped himself against a tree, one heel pressing to the bark while his other braced his weight on the ground. He crossed his arms and tilted his head, his expression relaxed and contemplative. I stood beside him, facing the horizon. My spine was stiff. What if Finn woke up while I was gone? What if he used my absence to do something stupid?
We should go back. I turned my head to say the thought out loud.
“Do you want to know a secret?” Laurie asked, keeping his gaze on those rolling hills. “How I manage to smile and make my grand jokes, even when the world is crumbling around us?”
I didn’t need to think about it. “Yes. Desperately.”
