Witch Eyes (23 page)

Trey was still standing there in shock. But I could see the way his mind was working furiously, putting together pieces of the puzzle. My arrival, and Jason’s return not long after. The fear of Catherine, and the way I’d reacted when I found out he was her son.

“Trey, it’s not what you think … ” But it was.

He straightened in front of me, all that Lansing ego steeling his spine. “You don’t look a thing like him.” His hands gripped into fists, every muscle in his face clenched up. “This is just some trick … you’re being manipulated, Braden.”

“No I’m not.” I didn’t want to tell him, but it was already out there. There wasn’t any taking it back, or hiding it now.

“You don’t look like him!”

“But he does look remarkably like his mother, doesn’t he?” Lucien stepped aside, standing directly beneath the painting I’d noticed the first time I came in here. A dark shape hovering over a young woman. A shape with features I could see now. A man, with the same dark hair and upturned nose as Lucien.

“They’re manipulating you. That’s all this is, some giant plot to get back at my mother.” Trey was heaving now, his breath coming in furious bursts of energy. “Because of
what you can do.”

“Not everything’s about your mother!” I screamed, reminded again of all the reasons we would never work out. His blind faith, his arrogance, my lies … and our families.

“Boys, boys. Keep it civil. You’re not Romeo and Juliet, and this isn’t the stage. Don’t get any i
de—” In the middle of speaking, Lucien whipped his hand out suddenly. His eyes zoomed onto Trey.

Trey had been reaching behind him with one hand. I didn’t have to see it to know what he was reaching for. A weapon.

Everything started happening all at once. The atmosphere in the room intensified as the lights flickered, then dimmed. Trey jerked upright in the middle of his movement, flying backwards against the wall next to the door.

I ripped off the glasses an instant later, but there was nothing for me to see. Only a hint of shadows where I expected to see magic. The room was empty of visions, of memories to cling to. It was a blank canvas, but brushed with a tainted feeling.

Trey struggled on the wall where a force pinned him several feet above the ground. A trail of shadows, darker than the rest, ran between him and Lucien like a cable line.

There was something in the lawyer’s eyes, a swirl that hadn’t been there before. At first I thought I was imagining it, but the closer I looked at him, the darker the fog in his eyes grew. It flowed through the iris, a cloud that smoked through everything until there was nothing left but solid obsidian.

“Wh-what are you?” Trey choked out.

This was it. The darkness and shadows I’d seen before. The demon hidden inside the body of a man. The traces of darkness that had been watching me since I came to town. The shadowy eye revealed by my spell.

Hidden inside, but where I couldn’t see.
Only coming out when Lucien tapped into his powers. He’d been spying on me since I came to town, stalking me.

Now that there was something to grab onto, my mind did what it was best at. It soaked up everything it could.

Naked pain and fear no light even the moon grows dark please stop I don’t want this anymore what is that boy doing now with empty hollows where there should have been fire that burns inside I’m never going to do anything worthwhile with this concrete void like a whirlpool I can’t look away but god it hurts.

Lucien’s eyes continued to grow in front of me as I struggled against the snapshots, pictures, and voices that hurtled out from him. Hundreds of them, all sounding so terrified before the apathy set in. Soon the darkness swallowed his face, until all I could see was a pair of shadowy eyes across the breadth of my vision.

And then they swallowed me up, too.

Thirty-Two

“Of course it doesn’t hurt, my darling. You should know by now that I’d never want to hurt you.” My mouth opened to the words, but it wasn’t my voice that came out.

We were in Lucien’s office, but now it was daytime, and I was seated behind his desk. And seated in one of the client’s chairs was a young girl. Long dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she was dressed conservatively. She looked nervous.

Fear always makes them smell so much like roses.
I reached out my hand, realizing it was Lucien’s hand I was looking at, and touched her cheek. This wasn’t me. It was Lucien. A memory?

“Soon it will all be over.” My own voice had never sounded so husky. Energy vibrated around her—an aura only Lucien could see. As he grazed her skin, the bright colors muted, replaced by the night sky drawn to his fingertips. Darkness and sparkling lights, only the sweetest stuff, collected where he touched. Faster and faster it gathered, stealing the color from her cheeks.

She would have touched the heart of a small boy, inspiring him to write a legacy of children’s books.
The more I drew it out of her, the more lightheaded I felt. Contentment washed through my body, and I felt … satiated. Lucien’s thought, not mine.

Feeding. That’s what he was doing. Drawing out her potential, her destiny, and feeding on it like some kind of vampire. That’s why so many girls worked here. And why they never lasted long. He was using them as some sort of food source, taking all that potential, all that talk of destiny, and feasting on it. How?

I wanted to gag—to take this dark act and expel it out of me. To forget it had ever happened. But I wasn’t in control of this body; I was just a visitor. It happened fast, all that potential sucked dry. The girl slumped in the chair, looking winded and vacant.

An entire path of her life, a path full of goods and bads, sucked away, leaving only a gnawing emptiness.
This is how demons exist
, the mind around me explained.
Sating the hunger, however they can. Stealing innocence, purity, and potential.

The image shifted and the office blurred away until I was seated outside on a garden bench. A house behind me stood three proud stories tall, a glimmer of something I recognized.

“You’ll never find it. I know your games well enough.” A woman was speaking, draped in layers of silk veils that did nothing to hide her features, but managed well enough to mask the truth that those eyes saw.

I glanced down, studying the cuticles on my—his—hands.
Funny how the skin looks so shiny, like marble
. I tested a nail against the palm, but felt nothing. The skin didn’t shift at all, as though it were iron and not flesh.

“You’ll forgive me someday.” My voice was pleasant, belying the rage that boiled inside.
Arrogant witch!
“All I did was adhere to the nature of our agreement. Harming you was the last thing I ever wished.”

“A different story you spin, now that you’ve lost your edge.” The woman chuckled, her form fading into mist at the edges. He hadn’t seen more than a projection of her in months. Hiding away, somewhere he couldn’t find. “How has humanity been treating you, Lucien? Trapped inside your cage of blood and bones. Never say I wasn’t the most attentive of students.”

She was staring at me so long, and so hard, I wondered if she could see me. The real me, trapped inside this vision out of Lucien’s mind.

Everything sped away again, and with force I pulled myself back. Back into the office, where Trey hung with Lucien staring him down.

The connection with Lucien was still there, linking me to him. Though the room was empty of the things I normally saw, there were threads spilling out everywhere. Each one vibrated a different color, humming and glowing with the need to be seen and be made real. Futures. And behind them, the dark swirl of energy I barely saw, thick like fog. Power that was magic’s other half, invisible to witches the way magic was invisible to normal men. Demonic power.

The threads were like the images and symbols I saw, but spread out over a hundred different stretches of yarn. And wherever I looked, they throbbed.

My eyes rested on one for a moment too long, and I could see inside. A path where Trey pulled out his gun and fired. Different threads, all nearby, said much the same. I flickered my gaze between them, and saw the bullet’s arc shifting just a fraction of an inch. Each a different possibility.

“As I was saying.” Lucien seemed oblivious to the trip I’d taken through his mind. Images flashed around me, but I tried to push them aside. “Neither of you is fit to accomplish his destiny. That leaves me little choice in the matter.”

The threads started to pulse all at once, shrieking their tales at me.

“Braden … help me.”

“Braden … help … ”

The timing is always different, fractions of a second in some cases, but he always calls out for me.

“Braden!” Trey’s voice, his real voice, drew me out of the threads and back into the room. Lucien was clenching his hands now, tightening them into a fist. Trey’s body was constricting, the shadows shrinking around him.

“Stop!” Even if I couldn’t see it, there was still a lot I could do. Coming to Belle Dam had shown me that.

Lucien didn’t even look my way. “The boy will betray you. Weaken you.
This happens.
Deal with it.” He spoke like the future was already written. Killing Trey meant nothing to him.

But I cared. I cared a lot.

“I told you to stop!” I looked around, but there was nothing to help me. No Jason. No John. And no Trey. I was alon
e.

Lucien’s hand closed tighter, and Trey writhed against the wall. “I don’t work for you. You don’t own my leash.”

“Put. Him. Down.” Visions and feelings and memory collided into me, swept up in a hurricane of power and trauma. Everything that Lucien kept hidden was slipping out, spilling his secrets into the room.

Embrace the pain,
Jason said.
Stop running
, Trey said. Everyone always telling me what to do. For once, I listened.

I drew on the magic, without words, and without any sort of safety net. I took everything that was building around me, and took the power from it. I didn’t have to speak; my vision was a crystal voice, drawing as much magic from the city as I could. I could totally do this.

As flames and energy crashed around me, the link with Lucien severed itself and returned the room to its normal emptiness. Too much, and too fast. The last time I’d channeled this much energy, I hadn’t been able to control it when it got loose.

I knew where the shadows were, where the trail of Lucien’s power was arcing toward Trey. Even if I couldn’t see them, they were still there. I thought of the sun. Shadows and sunlight never played well together. I just hoped it was enough.

I twisted the magic in on itself, honing it into sunlight and filling it with purpose. Destruction. Once the magic had a direction, it lasered out of me. When it reached the center of the room, it suddenly stopped.

Then, it swallowed everything.

It was like a supernova had been unleashed. The tiny little ball of magic fell in on itself until it pulled a Big Bang. Dazzling sunlight flared through the room.

I could handle a lot, and most of the things I saw were hard to perceive but still possible … but this much light was agony. My exposure to real, unfiltered light had always been taken in short, sickly-sweet sips. And now I was drowning.

I tried to close my eyes, but couldn’t. I saw every bit of sunlight that tore through the room and eviscerated the shadows.

I heard Trey fall to the ground, or at least I heard a thump that might have been him. But my vision was a solid wall of white, and my head pulsed with a seventeen-hammer orchestra.

“What are you doing?” There was no mistaking Lucien’s snarl. What kind of future was he seeing now?

Using that much magic, and seeing it in action, was worse than any normal vision. The pain still thrusted in my head—an arrow that wouldn’t remove itself. It just ground against the insides of my skull, etching in grooves and lines. More arrows joined the first, all scrawling secret messages inside my skull.

“Don’t be an idiot!” I couldn’t see what Lucien was doing, but I knew I still had to act. If I didn’t, he’d kill Trey.

I gathered up the magic, picturing it as it dispersed all over the room. I took it back, recycling the power and hardening it into steel.

It wasn’t as neat as the binding circle John had trapped me in, but the core of it was the same. I slammed a wall into the room, a force of air that warbled and wavered even as it tightened around Lucien. The wall was tenuous at first, slowly hardening from something fragile like a balloon into something like steel. Boxing him in.

It was the first thing I saw when my vision started to clear. A silver and blue bubble, barely more than five feet across.

I was rattling so hard it felt like even my lungs were shuddering in my chest. My knees gave out from under me, and I fell.

On the other side of the room, I saw Trey rise up.

Lucien’s eyes didn’t glow so much as they gloomed, shadows that were growing darker inside the bubble. He reached out to press his fingertips against the edge of the shield. The blues and silvers arced like bottled lightning, separating from each other and slowly tearing apart the shape. The harder he pressed, the faster the lightning arced around the shield.

I drew more magic through my body and into th
e spell.
Harder. It has to be stronger!
I was just the conduit—the focus to keep the magic stable. But the harder I pushed, the harder Lucien pushed back. And the faster the spell continued to crumble.

“You’re making a mistake, boy.”

I couldn’t keep this up. But I wouldn’t back down, and I wouldn’t give up. Sweat poured down my face, so cold I thought for sure it must have been freezing against my skin. “I won’t let you hurt him.”

As far as intimidating voices go, mine was not one of them. I was lucky I could still make audible sounds.

I’m pushing as hard as I can, and it’s not enough.
A half hour ago, I’d been willing to make a deal with Lucien, knowing what he was.

Now, he wanted to kill Trey. And maybe me, too.

Then Trey surprised the hell out of both of us.

¤ ¤ ¤

“I’ll shoot him, Fallon!” The gun was pointed at me, and there wasn’t an ounce of hesitation on Trey’s face.

Lucien’s manicured fingers hesitated, and gave my spell a much-needed chance to regroup. “You wouldn’t,” he said, his tone musing as his eyes flickered left and right. Reading, the way he’d read me when we first met face to face. Just as abruptly, his voice changed to a certainty full of wonder. “You would.”

The guy I’d fallen for, the one who’d made Belle Dam a more comfortable place to be, was gone. As I looked at him, all I could see was cold, hard lines of icy loyalty and purpose. He wouldn’t look at me.

Trey would shoot me. After all, I was the enemy. I was the one who’d played him. I’d used him.

But I didn’t want to die. “Trey, you can’t—”

“Shut up!” Trey’s aim never hesitated; it was locked on me.

“I saved your life, you asshole!” This was the thanks I got. I was pushing as much magic through me as I could. There wasn’t an ounce left to try and defend myself. Release it, and Lucien would finish the job. To save me?

It was getting hard to breathe. With every pump of my heart, my head throbbed, and in the space between, more images continued to shove themselves inside.

I wouldn’t even die in peace.

“I thought you could take care of yourself?” Trey’s voice was like steel, but at the moment his voice died, his eyes met mine, and I saw through him.

I can’t shoot him but I have to blue agony and rose colored remorse so desperate Fallon will kill me him us but he’s shaking little Braden like rabbits. Something bad will happen he can take care of himself but must stop Fallon this is agony hell despair.

Flashes of reds and pinks hidden under a silver shroud of determination. Heat, and desire, and pain. I only saw through him for a moment, but it was long enough. Trey was the one who always followed through. Determined. Never wavering from what he wanted. He didn’t want to, but he’d shoot me if he had to. Unless I could stop Lucien.

“Put the gun down, Trey.” I could feel the strain on the binding spell ease, as Lucien watched us both. Waiting to see how this all played out.

“You’re Jason’s son?” The cords in Trey’s arms flexed as he gripped the gun tighter. “You’re working with
him
?”

There was no sense in denying it. “I was.” Vertigo was starting to set in. All that magic, rushing into me and out into the barrier surrounding Lucien, was starting to sweep me away with it. It felt like my feet were falling asleep, tingling slowly as sensation struggled to assert itself.

“My mother was right about you.”

He had to know the words would sting. Had to know just how bad it would hurt. But he didn’t care. And in that moment, neither did I. I was as much a part of the magic as I was the container, and before I even realized it, cords of power were extending out from me, wrapping around Trey. My anger pushed at the magic, demanding pain in return. The spell Jason had used on me, but far stronger.

His hand with the gun dropped, his muscles going slack. I could feel the way it affected him, vertigo that was quickly setting every nerve ending into a screaming frenzy. Pain, and lots of it.

He gasped, and the sound drew me back. Oh god. What was I doing? Hurting
Trey
? Even if he had been pointing a gun at me, this wasn’t me.

To my right, Lucien cleared his throat. It felt like my head moved in slow motion. Inside the binding wall I’d thrown around him, the air had gone black. I couldn’t see inside, nothing but the flaring sparks of light where my spell held.

Then it erupted, raining magic down on me as I was thrown to my knees.