Traitor (25 page)

“Leave them alone,” I whispered. “They’re just kids.”

“You made deals. Took favours. There are repercussions, Ava. And the children will not always be children.”

I took a step forward and bounced back. More shields. “What’s in it for the witch? For all of the witches.”

“Not all of the witches will make it,”
Marina
said, but she didn’t sound sorry. “I, on the other hand, will have unlimited power, thanks to you.”

“What the hell do I have to do with it?”

Esther growled as she finally freed herself from the barrier. She rushed to my side.
Marina
looked up from stirring ingredients in Eddie’s black, cracked bowl, tapped two fingers against her cheek, and gestured outward. Esther flew through the air and hit a tree trunk. Her head cracked against the ground when her body fell.

I tried to run to her, but some kind of magic twisted around my legs and rooted me to the spot. “Eddie, help her!”

He glanced in Esther’s direction then shrugged. “She’ll live. But that’s enough, Marina.”

Marina
stared at Peter, Carl, and Gabe as if she hadn’t heard Eddie speak. “She’s exerting a lot of energy in fighting my magic. Maybe we should feed one of the humans to her.”

“Too much,” he said. “She’ll be too strong, and you won’t be able to contain her.”

“We don’t know that.” She looked at me with greedy eyes. “And I’ll have so much more power afterward.”

“You didn’t go to all that trouble of tainting my ointments to heal her now,” he snapped, his eyes dark and furious. “You left her too weak and almost ruined everything. She could have been killed by her enemies before we could use her.”

“Don’t overreact, little man,” she said lazily. “I kept her busy, and she’s here now. Besides, there was always another option.”

“I warned you that you can’t predict the traits of a mongrel,” he snapped.

Marina
ignored his anger and went back to her chanting.

I swallowed my own comments, watching them warily as I tried to wriggle my way out of
Marina
’s magic. She wanted me strong for whatever was to come, but she had needed me weak before. Eddie hadn’t sounded impressed by that particular revelation, but why? What was my purpose?

“Will the children die?” I asked.

Eddie’s eyes softened. “I’ll just be channelling their power, not taking their lives.”

“And me? Am I going to die?”

Eddie gave me a fatherly smile.

Marina
let out a snort of disgust. “I’m almost done. Can we start?”

He looked up at the sky. “Any minute now. We’re almost ready.” He shivered with excitement, his eyes truly alive.

“What if she hates you for it?” I asked. “What if she hates what you’ve become?”

He glared at me. “Then I’ll make her love me again.”

“Eddie, please—”

“Enough!” he shouted, and the air turned warm around me.

“We should have taken the fae,”
Marina
said. “It would have been a good accompaniment to the immortal.”

“You have enough,” he said, and when her back was turned, his eyes were cold upon her. He picked up a chalice and filled it with water from a bottle. He saw me staring and shrugged. “I’ve been to Kerry to avail myself of all that special spring water they still have there. A little protection of my own.” He sprinkled water over Marina, me, the grass, and the book. The book sizzled as he drank the last of the liquid. “Let’s begin.”

Marina
knelt on the grass, her eyes closed as she chanted. A hum came from the line of witches as they began their own chanting. Something touched my skin, caresses at first, then pinching fingers. The presence lifted me in the air and moved me in front of
Marina
, making me hover before her. She opened her eyes, and they were blank and white. Her blue lips moved rapidly, and something shifted under her skin, waves of colour that rippled and shimmered and fought to escape. A fresh burn running from her hand to her elbow was the only part of her that didn’t change.

I moved to the next plane and pushed through, feeling as though I were suffocating. I saw the souls attached to Marina as well as Eddie, saw them desperate for release. I saw her darkness growing and multiplying with every word, and I saw myself, hopeless and trapped, unable to escape her strengthened binds. Whatever she was calling to her was stronger than me on every plane.

I still tried, but an invisible hand gripped my throat and hissed, “Not so fast.”

Marina
rose to her feet, her murmurs becoming shouts as she called out words that made no sense to me. “He’s ready,” she yelled. “He’s waiting for the gates to open.”

I could only move my eyes to find Eddie. “Who’s ready? What’s happening?”

His face was troubled. “When the veil opens, many beings will want to break through. Not just the dead. All the gates between the levels of Hell and the various planes of existence will open. Demonolatry is a long-lost art, but some, like
Marina
, have been waiting for the chance to call out the ancient demons again.”

“From Hell?”

“No, Ava. True demons. Not from Hell. Lucifer’s creations are mere shadows in comparison.”

A blast of warmth hit my body, and I almost rolled over in the air from the force of it.
Marina
lifted a knife and cut her forearm. She let the blood drip into the black bowl. Next, she cut my wrist, and the blood pumped freely. She collected some then handed the bowl to Eddie.

He searched me for the dagger and used it to cut his hand, adding to the blood in the bowl. He said a few words under his breath and stirred the blood with my dagger. The knife lit up, and he took a deep breath before handing the bowl to
Marina
.

She tipped the bowl to her lips and drank deeply. The skin around her mouth bubbled when she finished, but she trembled, her eyes flashing with delirious joy.

“I feel it,” she said. “It’s running through me. It’s… I need more.”

“Take it,” Eddie said softly. “Take as much as you need.”

She fell to her knees next to me and took my wrist. I wanted to recoil from her, to fight back, but the invisible hand around my throat kept me frozen. Marina the human witch drank my blood like a vampire, strands of her hair turning fire-engine red before my eyes.

“There’s something special in your blood,” Eddie said. “I haven’t found anything else quite like it. I was lucky to find
you
. After Carl drank from you, I knew it was one of the missing pieces. Forever changed, he was, and she’ll need all she can get to withstand what’s coming.”

I stared at
Marina
in horror as she gulped, feeling less in control than I had when the vampires had tortured me or when people my grandmother had paid tried to beat the demons out of me. Before me was true evil, a true monster, prepared to wreak havoc on the world for a little more power.

I didn’t know what true demons were, and I didn’t want to find out. I pushed and pushed, trying to find the smallest chink, the tiniest weak spot, but I might as well have been encased in iron.

Eddie stepped behind
Marina
, his hands on her shoulders. “Good girl,” he said. “Drink your fill. It’ll all be over soon.”

She slurped greedily, her burn healing before my eyes.

Eddie caught my eye and smiled. “Not to worry, pet.”

Thank God we hadn’t brought everyone with us. But what hope did anybody have when Eddie was unleashing something terrible on the world?

“The book,” he whispered to
Marina
.

She kept hold of my wrist, pulling my arm over my head to keep drinking as she moved. She reached out for the book, and everything began for real.

The book beat its pages like wings, and energy flowed into
Marina
. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head, and she dropped my arm to touch the book with both hands. Her fingers seemed to go inside the book then to pull something out. She moaned in ecstasy, never noticing that Eddie had crept up behind her.

He raised his hand, and I saw my dagger. He plunged the knife into
Marina
’s back. We were all traitors in the end.

A scream wrenched from her lips, and she let go of the book. She slumped to the ground, and when Eddie laid his hand on her forehead, whatever had linked them disappeared back into Eddie.

The barrier slowly lifted, and a voice screamed in my ear as I fell to the ground. Shouts filled the air. I rolled over slowly, weakened by the loss of blood, and watched Eddie pull Marina’s still bleeding body to the little altar he had set up for the book. The witches were dying, one by one, but Carl, Gabe, and Peter had been freed.

They ran toward us but couldn’t get through the souls that Eddie sent their way. The souls had become semi-solid, and they had twisted into demented beings after their years of torture. They clawed at my friends, keeping them away from us.

“Get Esther out of here!” I screamed.

I didn’t wait to see if they ran. I crawled over to Eddie, feeling light-headed.
Marina
had taken so much blood, and I had already been fatigued.

“What’s happening?” I asked. “What’s going on?”

The sky was darkening, turning black and red. The ground trembled, and some deep instinct urged me to run and hide.

“It’s all coming together. I let her take the power of many, and then I sacrificed her. She was an evil woman, Ava. I couldn’t suffer her to live after the lessons she learned from me.”

“The children—”

“Are fine. I’m channelling their power, that’s all. Maeve?” He glanced around. “Not yet. Soon, though.”

“This isn’t the way, Eddie. You warned me against revenge once. What the hell is this?”

“This is justice.”

“True demons are justice?”

“It was the only way. I needed the power of different worlds.” He dipped my dagger into
Marina
’s blood and flicked it in every direction as if anointing the earth. He spoke rapidly, calling for Maeve and chanting a spell.

“Eddie, please. We’re all going to die. I saw Lucia’s visions. Nothing good can come from this.”

He shook his head. “I’ll get to see her again. That’s worth any price, Ava.”

He threw blood at the book, and it soaked up the liquid hungrily. The book was truly alive, and it beat its pages as if to say, “More!” The energy had stopped pouring from it, but something bubbled upward from the pages, threatening to break free.

“Here it comes,” he whispered, but he looked unnerved.

I pressed my hand against my wrist, unwilling to give the earth or the book any more blood, but it was too late. The spell was already in motion. Eddie’s plans had already begun, and there was no way I could stop it.

“I’m strong enough to contain the power now,” he said as if to himself. He placed his hand on the book. Streams of light and darkness ran through his fingers and up his arm.

Eddie shrieked, his back arching. He threw out his arms, dagger still in hand. “Maeve! Maeve!”

A path burned its way toward us along the grass. A blank space became a shadow; a shadow became a woman. She reminded me of the painting, but there was a madness in the eyes.

“Maeve?” Eddie spluttered and dropped the dagger.

I kept moving, desperate to do something, anything at all.

They met, and his hands touched the swell of her stomach. “You came back to me,” he said.

“I didn’t have a choice,” she said. “Those who return will never be the same.”

“It’ll be okay,” he said. “It’ll be fine. The baby will—”

“Not a baby any longer,” she said sadly. “That was the price you paid.” The bump twisted as if something fought to get out. Maeve winced. “Our baby is long gone.”

“No,” Eddie said. “It’s our baby. You were right. We should have moved on. I should never have said no. I should have given up on the gods for you. When you died, it was too late, but it’ll be different this time. We can go anywhere, be happy, and—”

“I loved you once,” Maeve said, and she wrapped him in her embrace. Her gaze fell upon the dagger, and she nodded at me.

I clutched it between my fingers and held it up to her, unable to do anything else. I couldn’t stand, and I was still bleeding. I was sure I would die there.

Maeve took the dagger and kissed Eddie once. She looked so young, but she was determined. When she drove the dagger into her stomach, a scream wrenched the air, but it didn’t come from Maeve. Eddie sank to his knees along with her.

“No,” he whispered. “Not this time.”

“Not this time,” she repeated then stabbed him in the heart.

He choked out a sound, his hands shaking. She helped him to lie down in the grass. Blood poured from both of their wounds, feeding the book, somehow giving it strength, even as the screams of a dying power came from Eddie’s body. Wrapped in her arms, Eddie died with the woman he had loved and obsessed over, and Maeve was given peace at last.