Living with Your Past Selves (Spell Weaver) (39 page)

As we struggled, she lost control of the cauldron, which went crashing to the roof below, probably not breaking, but certainly spilling its precious potion. At this point she realized that she was not going to be able to complete her plan tonight; there would simply be no way to complete the cauldron preparations again, and I could tell from the look in her eyes she could not complete the process of binding my soul in the cauldron without whatever the fluid was.

I was dimly aware of Stan below us hacking away at the altar. It was still regenerating, but much more slowly without a blood source, and he was using the hardness of his blade to actually knock chunks of it loose. Whoever was in charge of Stan’s body was every bit as determined as he could be. He might just beat the altar after all.

I felt a subtle shift in Ceridwen’s energies and realized that she was about to open a portal into Annwn, presumably to escape there. I knew if I let her get away, she would raise another army of shifters and come at us again and again, and if she couldn’t trap my soul in her cauldron, she could at least take from me everyone I cared about. But if I clung to her and went through the portal with her, I wouldn’t probably be strong enough to deal with her on the other side, let alone whatever awaited me there.

I could feel the portal opening, and my struggling against her was not breaking her concentration on it. However, to concentrate on it, she had let her control of the air currents grow very slack. I knew the altar was directly below us. Again I grabbed the currents, this time dissipating them and putting us into free fall with her on the bottom. She had not expected this move, and she tried to fight back, but we fell too quickly for her to entirely counter the move. She slowed her descent, just as I had hoped she would—I really wasn’t trying to die. Still, we hit the altar with a bruising thud. I managed to roll off quickly, but Ceridwen did not fully realize her danger until it was too late.

You see, by now the altar had been thrown into blind panic. Even the most loyal dog may bite its master at such a time, and Ceridwen was only the latest of many masters. Stunned by her fall, she lay still for a moment, and the altar, having tasted a few drops of blood from her arm wound, reacted to the blood source as a necessary way to renew its power and fight back against Stan. Like me, her back was pierced with a hundred splinters, but this time they were larger and more insistent.

Whoever was controlling Stan tried to reach for her, but I managed to warn him back.

“It is God’s will,” I said in the same ancient Hebrew he was using. “Let God’s will be done, for is it not written, ‘He who lives by the sword will die by the sword?’” Too late I remembered I was quoting the gospel of Matthew, which someone speaking ancient Hebrew would neither know nor acknowledge, so I hastily changed direction. “She has brought this abomination among us. Surely it is only just to let her suffer from that which she would have inflicted upon us.” I think Stan’s current persona was skeptical, but there must have been enough of my Stan still present that he was willing to trust me on this. He went back to hacking away at the altar, making it all the more frantic to drain Ceridwen of every last drop of blood, which is what it did, or so I’m told. When I passed out, her raucous screams were still filling the air.

CHAPTER 22: THE END?

We won that night, and Ceridwen would trouble us no more, except in the nightmares most of us had for some time after. Well, unless she caught up with some of us the next time she reincarnated, but I decided it was better not to dwell on that idea too much.

The altar had in its own way been even harder to beat. Whatever Ceridwen had thought she was going to do with it, it had proved more powerful—and more evil—than even she had ever imagined. Stan knew that, as did whichever past self of his was controlling his body. While I was out cold, he was hacking away at that altar, chipping it away one splinter at a time. The others revived one by one and helped as much as they could. Having drunk Ceridwen’s potent blood, its power flared again, and it was nearly dawn when Stan, praying fervently in ancient Hebrew, finally dealt the blow that killed the last of the magic within it. By that time I was conscious again, as was almost everyone else. Vanora and Nurse Florence had done as much as could be done to heal the worst of the injuries and get all of us back on our feet. Soon we would go home to make what excuses we could. This time there would be no shopping trip to buy replacement clothes, but the fact that we had been at Carrie Winn’s dealing with an emergency, as verified by Nurse Florence and by Carrie Winn herself, would probably get us all off the hook.

And how, you might ask, would we explain Carrie Winn’s bloodless corpse? The short answer is, we wouldn’t have to. Ceridwen wasn’t the only one who could shape shift. Vanora had apparently always foreseen the possibility that she would need to stay here in Carrie Winn’s form in the event Winn died in some kind of showdown with us. The few shifters still left in Awen would be sent packing back to Annwn, believing that Ceridwen was sending them back, and her human staff, who had all been given the night off, would come in from the their quarters at the back of the estate, or from their homes in places like Carpinteria or Santa Ynez, to find a kinder, gentler Carrie Winn. They would not find evidence of battle, which would be tucked away beneath illusions until Awen could be properly repaired. The extra artifacts, like Mordred’s sword and Morgan’s dagger, as well as the fragments of the dark altar, would be sent back to Wales, to be dealt with appropriately by the ladies of the lake. Morgan herself had disappeared some time during the climactic battle, but I couldn’t summon up the energy to worry about that yet. Aside from that, pretty neat and tidy, huh? Well, not quite!

My mom is always telling me to count my blessings, so here they are.

First, and miraculously, everyone lived, and with no permanent physical damage.

Second, I got Stan pulled back together, though it took quite a lot of effort. My mental state had been chaos most of the time when I was first awakened. The problem with Stan was, his condition looked an awful lot like really severe multiple personality disorder, with the part I thought of as the real Stan very seldom in outward control. The Israelite warrior who had been so helpful on Samhain seemed to be the default personality in the early days, and though he drew enough on Stan to accommodate modern life, his characteristics and desires were almost nothing like Stan’s. I couldn’t get him to even touch a computer at first, and you can imagine how Stan’s parents reacted when he announced he was dropping out of school to join the Israeli army. Oddly enough, they didn’t institutionalize him right away. His mom turned to me, of all people, to help, and I did. I talked with him, sang to him, magicked him, and eventually the Stan I knew reemerged, with quite a lot of school work to catch up on, but otherwise unscathed. Oh, like me he was not exactly the same person he had been before the awakening, but he was back into being the math-science genius, back into working his recently developed popularity with cheerleaders, back on track for Stanford, though he still talked occasionally about joining the Israeli army after he finished his undergrad work. “We’ll see,” was the most he got from his mom on that one. Most important, at least from my point of view, we were back to being best friends—the Israelite warrior knew who I was to Stan but never warmed to me himself; I think the suspiciously unbiblical nature of my abilities was off-putting to him. Anyway, Stan treated me like a brother, and a brother from whom he had been separated for years and finally managed to rejoin. Like me, he could access memories and skills from his past selves but remain in control himself, so there was little danger that any of them would come between us again. There was one change in our relationship, but it was a good one. Back when school started, he was in some ways more my sidekick than my equal—he had been right about that, though I never consciously tried to put him down. Now we could be not only friends, but equals as well. For some reason he wouldn’t tell me who the warrior inside him was, but White Hilt thought enough of him to flame for him, so clearly the sword viewed us both as worthy. Also, perhaps because he was working out so hard, perhaps because of all the magic that poured through his initially frail adolescent frame, he was finally catching up with me physically. With Gordy’s encouragement, he even made the wrestling team. I know, who would have thought!

Third, I didn’t have to hide who I was any more, at least not as much. Aside from my bound allies, the band knew, and the rest of the students who had been in Annwn on Founders’ Day had had their initial, seemingly crazy vision of me confirmed. Nurse Florence had wanted to call them in one at a time and erase those memories, but I talked her out of it. They all agreed to keep my secret, and frankly it was nice to have at least one person in each class who knew what was really going on. It made me feel less like an intruder from some other plane of existence.

Fourth, besides Stan, I now had other strong friendships that I could rely on. Dan and I were as close as we had ever been, even in the innocent childhood days playing soccer together. Shar, Gordy, Carlos—we all hung out with each other and with Dan and Stan, of course, whenever we could, and we all knew that any of us had all of the others’ backs. Even Jackson from the band became closer to me than ever before. Musicians in the same band aren’t automatically friends, but we were now.

Fifth, my relationship with my parents, while not perfect, was better than it had been for four years. They both made every one of my soccer games—yeah, I did end up going out for soccer, just like Dan wanted—and I knew Dad had to do some pretty elaborate schedule juggling at work to make that happen, but he always pulled it off. If my dad still wondered about my sexual preference, he gave no outward sign. They were both as proud as could be of all my accomplishments, and, damn, when I thought about it, I could really pat myself on the back for quite a few things now.

Okay, so you’ve noticed I haven’t mentioned Carla. If you really want to know, it’s hard for me to even think about her situation, let alone talk about it. The second blast of the awakening spell was not fatal, as Vanora had feared, but it did leave her comatose.

I visit her every day after practice, and if I’m late for dinner, my parents never bust my chops about it. She has a doctor who believes strongly that any kind of familiar company helps, so the nursing staff doesn’t bug me too much, even if I stay a little after visiting hours. I bring her flowers. I talk to her. I sing quietly to her. I hold her hand. I kiss her every so often, when none of the nurses are around. I know, it’s probably childish to play Prince Charming and try to awaken her with a kiss, but I’ve seen more desperate ploys than that work, and you know it. Not this time though. Her lips are warm, but unresponsive. I look into her eyes, but no one looks back. I try to read her, but I hit a blank wall. And that powerful magic I felt from her before? Gone without leaving a trace.

At least I know Carla is getting the best care possible. “Carrie Winn” has been donating massive sums to the facility Carla is in, which now has state-of-the-art equipment and a considerably larger staff than it used to. I suppose I should go thank Vanora some time, but I haven’t spoken to her since Samhain. I know she thought she was doing the right thing when she tripped me and kept me from taking the spell meant for Carla, but I can’t make myself forgive her. Yeah, I could be in that bed instead of Carla—but most of the time I wish that is the way things had turned out. I know I sound ungrateful. I know God is probably thinking that, but I hope he understands.

I didn’t used to be much of a churchgoer, but now I go every Sunday, without fail, and I pray like it is going out of style, I pray sometimes at night until I fall asleep. I know my friends pray, too, even the atheists, though I’m pretty sure they’re just humoring me.

The funny part is that everyone assumes I’m Carla’s boyfriend. Unless you count our brief encounter in the band van on Samhain, we’ve never really had a conversation about much besides music, and we’ve never really had a date, much less had sex, though for some reason the guys all seem to assume that somehow we’ve been intimate. When that was supposed to have happened in those last, hectic days before Samhain, I don’t know, but even Stan at one point seemed to have bought that theory, and I know my dad does—but if you think about it, he would be the most eager of all to embrace it. For the other guys, it might have been the only way they could explain the intensity of my feelings toward Carla. Hell, even I couldn’t explain them to myself. I was beginning to have feelings for her, sure, but now it felt as if we had been in love for years.

Even stranger, her family operates on the same premise—well, except for the sex part. I often have dinner at the Rinaldis’, and aside from consuming more pasta than I have before in six lives, I feel surrounded by their love, just as if I were a member of their family. Yeah, really weird, because I’m not even sure they knew my name before. At most, they knew that I was in the same band with Carla, and I know they didn’t much approve of her singing, because they never showed up to any performance. Now, damned if Mr. and Mrs. Rinaldi and Carla’s little brother, Gianni, don’t show up for most of my soccer games, and sit with my parents just as if they are all in-laws. Gianni plays soccer himself, insists on calling it “football” as Europeans do, and wants to be on the team in high school. Sometimes we kick the ball around a bit in the park closest to his home, though I usually have to stop those sessions faster than he wants and go somewhere else quickly. I don’t want him to see me cry. I know, more macho silliness, but that’s the way it is. He does remind me so much of her, and of what happened on Samhain, that there are times when being with him is like trying to crawl through barbed wire. That isn’t his fault, of course. It’s ironic that whenever I read him, he has the same feeling of gut-wrenching helplessness, of wanting to save his big sister and not knowing how to. He feels guilty for absolutely no reason, his guilt a childish reflection of my own, much deeper, much more realistic guilt. Somehow, I should have protected her better, maybe found a way to keep her away from Awen completely. Well, I can’t change her past. Maybe I can change his future. I know he is lonely without his big sister, and I know he always wanted a big brother. Maybe I’m a poor substitute for the real thing, but I’m going to do my damnedest to be whatever he needs me to be. I guess I need to spend more time with him, and if that means he’ll see me cry from time to time, so be it. Besides, Stan kind of graduated from that “little brother” spot in my heart to “brother.” That leaves a hole that is just the right size for Gianni. When I was counting my blessings, I should have included the Rinaldis, perhaps a bittersweet blessing now, but I’m betting it is the sweet part I will remember years from now.