Chapter Thirty-One
THIRTY-ONE
Eleonore sobbed into Ben’s shirt, body shuddering with the force of it. He’d picked her up the instant she’d begun crying and was carrying her to the parking lot. Good. She didn’t want anyone else to see her like this.
She hadn’t cried in centuries.
It was like discovering a lost art—the ability to weep. When hate had been her armor, there had been little room for tears. She’d forgotten how her eyes squinted and her nose tingled or how her throat felt raw from the choked noises she was making. It was an ugly feeling but also a relief—like a dam had burst and some horrible pressure had finally been released.
The witch was two days from Glimmer Falls. And Ben was going to take her there.
“Sit in the car or go home?” Ben asked as he set her down next to the SUV.
“Home,” she gasped.
It didn’t escape her that she’d thought of his house as home . As she leaned her forehead against the window, the raw cries in her throat turning to soft hiccups, she wondered if that was dangerous.
But she hadn’t had a home in so long. And when she thought about where she wanted to curl up and hide from the world, that house with its earth tones and sturdy furniture and the peeling paint in the kitchen was the first choice.
He drove silently, though he kept a hand on her knee. A big hand, but one capable of tending to the most delicate orchids. Eleonore wasn’t delicate, but it was nice to feel like it every once in a while. Or not delicate, but…protected. Like she could put down her weapons and rest and someone would be there, keeping watch.
Her clan’s war camp hadn’t been a soft place, but there had always been someone on the lookout. Succubi or other daytime species when the sun was up, vampire warriors at night. It had been easy to fall asleep at those fires with meat and blood in her belly and warm furs keeping the cold at bay. Despite the stereotype of the aloof, mysterious loner, vampires were clan creatures—they weren’t meant to be alone.
By the time they reached the house, her tears had stopped. She rubbed her wet cheeks, tasting salt on her lips. Her head throbbed and her eyes felt swollen, but a feeling of peace had settled over her.
Ben set her up on the couch under a blanket, then retreated to the kitchen to make tea. “Need blood?” he called.
Eleonore took stock of her body. This was early to need sustenance, but the snake bite had taken a toll. “A small mug, please.”
His head popped around the corner, and he tapped two fingers against his neck. “Want it from the source?”
That would be delicious, but—“If I drink from you, I’ll get aroused, and I’m too exhausted for that.” Even a succubus had her limits, and Eleonore felt wrung out. If she tried to grind on Ben’s lap, she’d probably topple over.
“Fair enough. Just know it’s on offer whenever you need.”
Sweet wolf.
Eleonore closed her eyes while he bustled around the kitchen. The witch was two days away, but how would they break the curse?
A mug clinked on the table, and she opened her eyes to the welcome sight of steaming blood dotted with marshmallows. Ben sat next to her as Eleonore grabbed the mug with murmured thanks. She drained it in a few deep gulps.
Much better. Her foggy head was clearing, and the exhaustion weighing down her limbs had begun to lift. Even the sore throb of her bitten arm was diminishing as the blood nourished her.
“Did they catch the person who left the snake at the rally?” she asked, realizing she’d forgotten that aspect of things. “And was anyone hurt?”
“No one else was hurt,” he said, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “Thanks to you. Gigi texted me that someone saw a car speeding away afterwards, but they didn’t get the license plate. It had to have been Cynthia, though.”
She thought of the smoke adder and how unfair it was for any creature to be used like that. “Is the snake all right?”
His expression softened as he looked at her. “I’ll text Calladia to double-check.” He typed on his phone, and a minute later it chimed with an incoming text message. “Yes, she got some wildlife researchers from the college involved. They’ll rehabilitate it and figure out what to do with it after that.”
“Good.” With that question resolved, she could focus on the most important issue: what to do about Isobel. Eleonore knew a bit more about the witch now, but she didn’t know nearly enough. “Do you have Alzapraz’s phone number?”
He nodded. “Want me to call him?”
“Please.”
Ben dialed and put the phone on speaker. It rang twice before the warlock answered. “Hello?”
“This is Eleonore Bettencourt-Devereux,” she said.
“The vampire succubus who got bitten by the snake?”
“The same. Thank you for healing me.” She eyed the clock—three more hours until midnight, when she could remove the poultice and bathe the wound by moonlight. “Since you know Isobel, I was wondering if you’re also familiar with a binding spell for eternal servitude. I’m not immortal, but centuries ago she tied my life to a crystal. After that, she could summon or banish me at will, and I was mystically compelled to obey her orders.”
“Oof, that’s a nasty one.” Alzapraz sighed. “Isobel never was overly burdened by morals.”
“No,” Eleonore agreed. “She usually ordered me to murder her enemies or source the humans she drained life from.” She frowned, struck by a thought. “Do you extend your life span that way, too?”
He made a startled noise that evolved into a coughing fit. “So that’s how she’s doing it,” he said when he’d regained his voice. “And Hecate, no. Though ask me again on a day when the arthritis cream isn’t working.”
The witch’s hands had looked young throughout the years, not gnarled and spotted with age. “Is that why you look so old?”
Ben winced.
“What?” she whispered to him. “He must have a mirror.”
Alzapraz had apparently overheard that, because he burst into wheezy chuckles. “I look like shit, I know. There’s always an exchange with life magic—in my case, I traded my physical health for extra years of life. Thank goodness for Viagra.”
“Oh, wow,” Ben said. “Let’s not mention that to Mariel.”
“Why not?” Alzapraz asked. “I’ll never understand why young people treat their elders like naive infants. Do you imagine you’ve invented a single sexual activity we haven’t done before?”
Eleonore was starting to like this Alzapraz. “That’s a good point,” she said. “My Great-Great-Uncle Dragoslav claimed he introduced the Romans to anal plugs.”
Ben made a choking sound.
“Oh, I’m sure anal play predates that,” Alzapraz said. “I’d estimate it happened around the time humanity discovered fermented fruit. If there’s one constant across the years, it’s that people love getting drunk and stuffing inappropriate objects up their bums.”
Ben cleared his throat. “Can we return to the topic at hand?”
“Yes, let’s,” Eleonore said. There would be time to tease her proper werewolf about anal play later. “Ben bought the crystal from the witch, so he can control my actions now. We want to break the binding spell, but we don’t know how.”
Alzapraz hummed. “How was the spell cast to begin with?”
The memory was burned into her brain indelibly, and shame tightened her throat as she revisited how foolish she’d been. “We were in battle against the clan who murdered my father.” It had been a frozen, moonlit night, and blood had stained the snow while screams filled the air. Eleonore had shrieked her fury into the frigid sky as she battled toward the vampire who had slain her father. “During a lull when the enemy retreated to regroup, the witch approached me and said she had been watching me for a long time and admired my skill and ruthlessness. She said she could offer what I craved most: vengeance.”
Isobel had been a strange, surreal figure in her black cloak, face shadowed and pale hands upraised as she promised Eleonore the head of her father’s killer. Or what Eleonore had assumed was the head of her father’s killer.
Ben nudged her hand with his, and she took it. It was nice to have something to hold on to while she shared this horrid memory. “I was naive and had never met a witch before,” she continued. “I was unaware one might offer trickery.” Battle lust had been hot upon her, and with her heart pumping furiously and the wrong sort of pride surging at her combat talents being praised, Eleonore hadn’t paused to think. “I said yes, and she cut her palm, dripping the blood in a circle around her.”
“A blood binding,” Alzapraz said. “That’s an intimate spell. She must have really liked you.”
“Don’t say that,” Eleonore snapped, jerking away from the phone. “There is nothing of affection in what she did to me.”
There was a pause while she breathed heavily, glaring at the phone.
“I don’t mean to say she was correct,” Alzapraz said more gently. “Or sane, for that matter. I just mean that a blood binding connects the spellcaster with their target on a more personal level. You would have been in her thoughts often.”
Eleonore bared her fangs. “Well, she ended up selling me on eBay, so I can’t have been that important.”
Ben squeezed her hand.
“How did the ritual proceed?” Alzapraz asked.
Eleonore closed her eyes, revisiting a night of stark colors: black and white and red and the uneven flicker of torchlight. “She had me cut my palm and clasp my hand with hers. Then she started chanting and drawing runes in the air, and wind and light came from nowhere.” She shook her head. “I wish I could remember the words.”
“They would have been customized to the moment,” Alzapraz said. “Spellwork like that is very advanced—there’s no all-purpose spell to bring someone under your thrall. She would have needed to combine multiple incantations and modify the language to the precise situation.”
Well, that made her feel marginally better about not memorizing it. “When the light vanished, she was holding a piece of quartz. She said, ‘I banish you to your vessel , ’ and the world went away.”
Eleonore shivered and opened her eyes to look at Ben. She hadn’t told him what sort of command would return her to the plastic crystal, and it made her nervous to say the words out loud. He might be able to say many things and achieve the same effect, but as Alzapraz had pointed out, sometimes spells were specific. Maybe the precise words mattered.
If they did, she should never have spoken them before her new captor, no matter how unwilling he was or how she felt about him.
Ben wouldn’t betray her, she told herself. But there were ways a person could be influenced—threats, torture, etcetera—and if he spoke the words, willingly or not, she would be banished back to her prison. And then what? How long would the gray haze last this time? Would she ever see this era or these people again? What if someone slew Ben and stole the crystal from him while she was unable to help?
His expression was compassionate as he rubbed his thumb over her fingers, and Eleonore told the paranoid part of herself to quiet down. He was here, he was alive, and he’d sworn not to command her again. It was enough for now.
“Well,” Alzapraz said, “the good news is, the spell can be reversed.”
Eleonore gasped, hope bubbling up in her breast. “It can?”
“The bad news is, Isobel has to reverse it herself.”
Eleonore’s stomach dropped, and the fragile hope splintered into bitter anger. There was no way the witch would do that. If she’d had any intention of freeing Eleonore, she’d had her opportunity when putting the crystal up for auction.
“Why can’t I get another witch to do it?” Ben asked. “Since I own the crystal now.”
“She sold the crystal to you, but that doesn’t change the base nature of the spell.” Alzapraz clicked his tongue. “Think of it like land someone gets to occupy only as long as they’re alive. When they die, it goes back to whoever gave them possession. So you may possess the crystal—and Eleonore—for now, but rights revert to Isobel. If you were to die without selling the crystal to someone else, she would reclaim it.”
“Oh, gods,” Eleonore said. She hadn’t realized. “So if we can’t break the spell ourselves, even if I were to grow old with Ben…” A thought she hadn’t truly let herself entertain before realizing that future might be ripped away. She shook her head, refusing to accept it. “Maybe I’ll die before him.”
Ben looked distressed. “I don’t like that.”
“Unfortunately, spells like this are designed to be impossible to break by others,” Alzapraz said. “It’s dark, complicated, nasty magic most people would never touch, but I’ve seen it a few times over the centuries. You may age, but because Isobel tied your existence to hers, that connection will last until she releases you.”
Her stomach felt tighter and sicker with every revelation. So Eleonore could age alongside Ben, but the moment he died she’d become Isobel’s servant again, and she would linger until the witch was done with her.
It was a horrific thought.
Eleonore had never stopped fighting, though, so she reached for another possibility. “What if she dies? Will I be free then?”
“I’m not sure,” Alzapraz said slowly. “My best guess is yes, but it depends on the wording used in the initial spell. She would have needed to include an end provision no matter what—most likely something like Lygaria a’ servidail casglir liberum oula mortium , which roughly means ‘the bond of your service to end with my release or my death.’ But if she was feeling particularly cruel, she could have said casglir liberum oula mortiuz —‘to end with release or our death.’?”
It took Eleonore a few moments to parse the words, and then she stiffened. “Wait—”
Ben spoke at the same time. “You’re saying it’s possible that if the witch dies…Eleonore does, too?”
Please, no , she thought. Ben squeezed her hand hard, and she squeezed back until her bones ached.
“Possible, yes,” Alzapraz said. “Likely? I struggle to believe even Isobel capable of that. And she may have used entirely different wording. The language of magic is complicated, which is another reason she has to be the one to break this spell. Only she knows the stipulations she put in place.”
“Putain de bordel de merde,” Eleonore whispered. She stared at the black rectangle of Ben’s phone, wishing the answer to their predicament was as easy to look up as any other information on the internet. Her head ached, and a heavy, painful feeling pressed against the inside of her ribs.
She couldn’t go back to the existence she’d lived before. She wouldn’t .
“Can I at least torture her?” she asked. “I couldn’t hurt her before, but since she sold the crystal…” She obviously hadn’t tried hurting Ben, but she instinctively knew she wouldn’t be able to, and not just because she cared for him.
“Probably!” Alzapraz said with the forced cheerfulness of an auctioneer trying to point out the finer traits of a racehorse with three legs. “The mystical compulsion is tied to ownership of the vessel, so whatever protection she put in place probably is, too. What we’re dealing with here is more the fine print—extended warranty, liability, reversion of rights, things like that.”
Eleonore hissed.
“I’m sorry,” Alzapraz said. “None of this is pleasant to say or, I’m sure, to hear, but it’s the truth.”
She wanted to cry again, but her eyes wouldn’t produce tears. Perhaps she had used them all up.
Ben’s jaw was tense. His feet tapped a rapid rhythm against the floor. “We’ll find a way to convince Isobel to break the curse,” he said. “Or trick her into doing it.”
Eleonore appreciated how certain he sounded, even if he was just saying it for her benefit, but she was a blunt weapon. She approached things head-on and smashed them, and her experiences with trickery had largely been in service of others. If tricking Isobel into releasing her was the solution, she had about as much hope of that as she did of traveling back through time to stop her former self from speaking to the witch in the first place.
“I’ll force her to break it,” she said. “Even if I have to gouge out her eyes and feed them to her.”
Ben’s own eye twitched.
Alzapraz’s rattling sigh came from the phone speaker. “Well, good luck. I’m not a fan of forced eternal servitude, and it’s been disappointing to see Isobel’s trajectory over the years. She used to be fun before she got so paranoid.”
Eleonore made a face. Alzapraz must have known Isobel for a long time, then, because she had always been paranoid. “I hope you’re not friends, because I may commission Ben to knit a hat from her intestines.”
Ben blanched and leaned back, shaking his head.
Well, perhaps this was a good reason to give knitting another try.
“I’ve seen worse,” Alzapraz said with the resigned calm of a true immortal. “And Isobel and I were never much more than fuck buddies.” There was a pause. “She always found power in what she could take from others. If she took something from you, take it back. Oddly enough, she would understand that.”
Eleonore dug the heel of her free hand into her eye, pressing against a growing headache. She had words for many things in many languages, but she didn’t have a word for the sick, glistening hate that filled her guts like tar. She didn’t know how to speak the feelings that made her want to scream.
Ultimately, her most well-practiced language was that of violence, so Eleonore let go of Ben’s hand to grip the hilt of the knife holstered at her thigh. The leather wrap was smooth from her touch over the years, well-worn and waiting.
If the only way forward was to torture Isobel into releasing her, Eleonore would set herself to the task.
“I will take my life back,” she vowed. “Whatever it requires.”