How I Found You (20 page)

I shone the torch onto the paper, peeking over his shoulder.

It was incredible; all of the passages were handwritten, mostly in old-fashioned script. I scanned the words as Oscar turned the coarse pages—though I could tell he was uncomfortable with my scrutiny.

Banishing Thy Enemy…

The page turned.

Potions, Poisons and Antidotes…

The page turned.

Drawing the Blood of a…

The page turned, thank God. I wasn’t too keen on finding out the end to that one.

Retracing.

“This is it,” he spoke sombrely.

“What does it say?” I huddled on the floor beside him.

Outside, a flash of lightning illuminated the night sky.

Oscar read from the page. “Retracing. For he who wishes to visit the start, another must bestow his blood…”

Blood?

He carried on, skimming the text. “The root of a yellow flower, placed on the heart, and the blood of a witch on the lips…”

I cringed. “Blood of a witch?”

“And a yellow flower,” Oscar pointed out.

“Yellow flower? Like a buttercup?”

“Yeah, anything. Buttercup, daffodil, sunflower…” He returned to the page. “There’s an incantation, too.”

“Is that the spell part?”

“Yes. It’s a verse. I’d have to say it.”

My heart rate quickened. “So, we can do it?”

Oscar thrust the book into my lap. “No.”

“Why not?” I demanded. 

“Because we don’t have a yellow flower, for one thing. And do you really want to drink my blood?”

I pulled a face.

“Didn’t think so,” he smiled wryly. “Besides, there’s no time. The others are downstairs waiting for us.”

I stared longingly at the yellowed page. Oscar was probably right, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that this spell held answers. Answers we needed.

As Oscar rose to his feet, focused on listening intently to the sounds beyond the closed door, I flipped to the string-marked page in the book.

THE PROPHECY OF LATHIAUS

Oh my God.
My breath caught in my throat.
This is it. This is my prophecy
. I read on…

It is foretold, on the day of his end,

so doth life begin

At the stroke of the eleventh hour,

he shall awaken

All will bow before him

All will perish at his mercy

Only one can end the blood spill  

She, the girl with the heart of a witch—

I gasped as Oscar reached over my shoulder and slammed the book shut.

“That’s my prophecy,” I stuttered.

“Don’t read it,” he snapped.

I shone the torch at him. “Why not?”

He pursed his lips. “Come on,” he said. “Marco will be getting suspicious. He’ll probably come looking for us.”

Before Oscar could take the book from me, I opened it towards the front and flipped through until I found the Retracing spell. In one quick motion, I tore it from the spine. A fine layer of dust sprinkled down from the split paper.

Oscar sucked in his breath and yelped.

I glanced up at him. “We might need it,” I justified.

He pressed his knuckle to his mouth. “Rose, you just desecrated a worshipped, sacred book.”

“Sorry,” I said. “It was an accident.”

There was a beat of silence, and then Oscar laughed.

Well, he kind of laughed. He made a noise, anyway.

I folded the page and slipped it into my shoe—my chic dress didn’t provide many inconspicuous hiding places. How
did
those Bond girls do it?

Oscar returned the book to the trunk and rammed the chest under the bed. With our hands linked, we snuck out of the guest room and back downstairs.

Caicus and Marco were in the kitchen. I could hear them chanting in velvety, hushed voices.

“What are they doing?” I whispered, lingering in the shadows of the hallway.

“Summoning Lathiaus,” Oscar replied.

I cowered back. “Why? Surely that’s what we
don’t
want to do, right?”

Oscar’s eyes were trained on his brothers’ backs. “This is war,” he said darkly. “It’s happening whether we want it to or not. They’re just letting Lathiaus know we’re ready for him.”

I watched Marco sprinkle some sort of herb into a black clay pot. The contents steamed and fizzed like a wayward chemistry experiment.

“What’s that?” I shrank back further.

“The brew.”

“What is ‘the brew’?”

“It’s a potion.”

“For what?”

“You’ll drink it.”

Yes, he was answering my questions, but not in the form I’d intended. I was beginning to think his responses were tactical. After all, he was too clever to miss my point so entirely.

“What will it do to me?” I articulated myself as concisely as possible.

“It’s for the ritual.”

I placed my hands on my hips. “Oscar…”

He half-heartedly relented. “There’s a ritual to stop Lathiaus. Part of the ritual will involve the brew.”

Okay. That was the most I was getting out of him. It would have to suffice.

An abrupt reverberating noise made me jump out of my skin. The hollow chime of the grandfather clock. Ten thirty.

Half an hour to go…

Who I Am

THE GRANDFATHER CLOCK CHIMED. TEN
forty-five.

We sat around the dining table. The torch was our centrepiece, creating a path of light over the table and directly to the patio doors.

Any form of conversation had declined from polite, to occasional, to non-existent. My brothers and I sat like waxworks. Caicus stared at Marco. Marco stared at me. I stared at my hands. Rose, however, fidgeted like a hyperactive kitten. She crossed and uncrossed her legs, and chewed on a strand of hair. She looked at all of us. But none of us looked at her. 

The rain lashed down outside and the wind shook the glass doors. This was menacing weather if ever I saw it. The demon was waking up from nap time, and he was letting everyone know he was cranky.

I listened to the tick of the pendulum as it swung mechanically back and forth. My breath fell into sync with it. Breathing away the seconds.

Breathing away her life… or mine.

Without shifting my gaze, I reached under the table and entwined my hand with Rose’s. Her warm fingers tightened around mine.

I saw Marco fold his hands on the table.

Oscar
, he said, only perceptible to mine and Caicus’s ears.
Are you ready?

I flinched.
No
, I replied.

Marco’s eyebrows knotted together.
Then get ready
, he hissed silently.
You must be the one to do this. She only trusts you.

And that’s exactly why I can’t do it. Please, Marco,
I beseeched him,
understand that, at least.

Pathetic
, Marco scoffed.

My teeth clenched.

I understand
, Caicus jumped to my defence
. I’ll do it
.

No. She will be suspicious of you
, Marco shot him down.
This must go smoothly. It has to be Oscar
.

I will not give her poison
, I denied him point blank.
I would sooner die
.

I’ll do it
, Caicus repeated.
There’s no need for it to be Oscar. She won’t be suspicious. She won’t expect him to sit back while she drinks poison
.

That stung.

The clock struck the eleventh hour. I held my breath as the eleven chimes began their fatal melody.

Marco slid a half-full crystal brandy glass to Caicus.

Now
, he ordered.

Caicus lifted the glass. The murky brown liquid sloshed around in its crystal confines. When the torch light hit it, its hue looked almost coppery. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought it truly was brandy in the glass.

I felt sick.

One in exchange for many. One in exchange for many. One in exchange for many
… How many times did I need to drill that into my mind before I actually gave a damn?

I must have squeezed Rose’s hand a touch too hard, because her fingers squirmed in discomfort.

“Drink this,” Caicus said aloud, passing the glass to Rose.

She looked at me for confirmation. “What is it?” she asked.

I couldn’t speak.

“An elixir,” Caicus replied vaguely.

“What will it do?” She examined the liquid warily. Rightly so.

Caicus swallowed. He didn’t dare look at me. “It will protect you.”

I didn’t know what the hell was happening, but I started to wheeze and pant for breath. It was as though someone was wringing the air out of my lungs. I began to tremble, too. Uncontrollably and violently. I gripped the table, but that only made it shake along with me.

“Oscar!” Marco barked. “Get a hold of yourself!”

“Oscar,” Rose gasped. She set the glass down and coiled her fingers over my hands. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Marco snapped. “He’s
fine
. Aren’t you, Oscar?”

I nodded my head—although I imagined that was part of my general convulsions.

“Drink,” Marco turned his authority onto Rose. “Drink
now
. Lathiaus will be rising. We don’t have time to waste.”

Rose slipped her hands away from mine.

“What will it taste like?” she whispered, blissfully unaware.

I met her eyes. “I don’t know,” I choked.

“Will it be bad?”

I shook my head, gripping the edge of the table until my grasp almost dented the wood.

Rose gave me one final look before raising the glass to her lips.

The three of us watched through three very different outlooks. Marco hunched forward like a baying beast, vibrant with expectation. Caicus shrank back, his hands balled into fists. Me? Well, I quaked off the Richter scale.

I prepared to enact the most important moment of my life.

To be perfectly clear, what I was about to do was neither wrong nor right. It was just, plain and simple, what I
chose
to do. Deep down I never doubted that this would be my decision, because, quite frankly, I couldn’t live my life—however short or long—knowing that I had not done it. For it was, and forever will be, the greatest and proudest moment of my life. This moment would define not only who I was, but more importantly, who I would become from that second on.

I knew that some people would deem my choice the wrong one, but I would tell anyone, hand on heart, that I was damn glad I did it.

In one motion, I swooped in and switched off the torch, then struck my arm out like a snake, knocking the glass from Rose’s hand. It hurtled across the room and smashed against the patio doors in an explosion of crystal.

“No!” Marco bellowed. He lunged across the table and dived on top of me.

My chair skidded backwards and thumped against the wall. I toppled to the floor and my head smacked against the mahogany cabinets.

Dazed, I heard the scuffle of Rose leaping up.

“What’s going on?” she cried. “What was in the glass?” There was a frantic quaver in her voice.

I staggered to my feet. “Run!” I shouted to Rose. “It was poison.”

Marco roared. I couldn’t see all that well in the dark, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if his chest ruptured out of his shirt, Hulk
style. Anyway, what I did see was him lifting the dining room table and hurling it at us.

I jumped in front of Rose and used my arm to shield us from the airborne table.

But my arm only took the brunt of it, because the impact still knocked us both down to the floor.

We were trapped now. The overturned table had us captive against the wall. And to make matters worse, Marco’s boot smashed through the thick, varnished wood. I dodged it by a fraction of an inch.

“You were going to kill me,” Rose wept.

I had no defence.

“You lied to me, all this time.” She was really sobbing now. “How could you?”

“I can explain,” I said. But it sounded weak. It was the sort of thing people said when they had no justification. Unfortunately, now was hardly the time to have a deep and meaningful.

Marco’s fist came through the table. 

In the darkness, I could just about make out the shadow of the adjoining kitchen door. Before I’d even had a chance to think it through, I shoved Rose through the table legs and sent her in the direction of our only escape route.

She clambered out.

And that was the last I saw of her.