Chapter 43
Deejay
A thump wakes me up with a start. I turn over to find Matt gone and the baby monitor off. For a moment I dismiss the noise that woke me because obviously Matt got up to attend the babies, but then my brain reminds me that thumps loud enough to wake me mean something went wrong, so I jump out of bed, pulling on my underwear as I trip and hop to the door. I can see the gentle glow of the nursery’s night light backlighting Matt’s body slumped over in the hall. I run to him, sliding to my knees, and move him onto his back, checking his pulse and breathing all at once. Relief courses through me that he’s alive, just unconscious, then fear grips me. I don’t hear the twins.
I scramble into the nursery, barely getting to my feet before I see that my boys are sound asleep, and breathing, unharmed—just asleep.
I take a moment to recover my heart out of my throat before rushing back to Matt just in time to hear the sound of the front door slamming shut. I check Matt’s breathing once again, this time noticing that he’s wheezing in his throat.
Fuck. I need light.
I run to the end of the hall and hit the switch, then get back to Matt as quickly as possible. His neck is bruised and ugly, and there’s what looks like rope burns all over his body, around his wrist and across his chest. Bruises completely cover his right arm, and I can see a few places where the skin has split, weeping small puddles of blood onto the tile. I hear bubbling in his throat, so I run to my bathroom and grab a tin of slave, returning as fast as possible. “I’m sorry, Matt,”
I whisper, opening his mouth and shoving two fingers covered in salve into his throat. “On the plus side, I know from personal experience that you can handle a lot more than two fingers.”
The joke falls flat even with me, but it helps me reframe my fear. I spread the salve all over his neck and chest, rubbing it in over and over until the noise in his throat stops.
Shortly after he starts sounding normal again, his eyes flutter open and then he sits up in a panic. “Tio—”
he cries, jumping to his feet, his right arm hanging off his shoulder all wrong.
“Where—fuck. I just heard the front door, but you needed help.”
I tell him, running down the stairs. When we get to the second floor, I push him toward the hall. “Check on the others, then get Chanda.”
Matt breaks away from me as I continue down to the front door, swinging it open and running outside. I stop short, seeing Tio sitting on a fucking lawn chair in the middle of my driveway. “What the actual fuck?”
I demand, shocked at the audacity of the Chaos Eater.
“Don’t get your manties in a twist,”
he huffs, annoyed. “I didn’t kill him, and he attacked me first. I was just defending myself. Try to do a guy a favor, and what does he do? Try to kill you.”
“What were you doing in my house?”
I shout, pissed.
“I was just helping you two out. You didn’t get home until midnight, and then you didn’t even get to sleep until two or later. I was just trying to let you guys sleep a bit longer when the twins woke up.”
Fear jumps into my throat and I feel the color drain from my cheeks. “You touched my babies?”
I whisper, shocked and revolted at the idea that he got to my babies while I was asleep.
“I rocked them back to sleep and put them back in their cribs. I didn’t harm them. I never would. Why do I keep having to say this to you? I don’t hurt kids.”
He sounds offended, but I don’t care.
He touched my babies.
This man who’s been at odds with my family from the moment he arrived in our lives, who works for a man actively trying to kill Matt TOUCHED MY BABIES!
I tap into the well of my power, gathering as much as I can. Rage swells like a tidal wave, lending more power to it. I hear the words of the curse inside my soul, the intention to protect my family, the need to keep them safe from harm, from him. “Blood calls to blood, life to the living, death to the dead—”
“Deejay, stop,”
he warns me, standing up. “I didn’t harm your family.”
“My family means everything to me.”
The words slip out, becoming part of the curse without my intention, changing it, morphing it until it’s completely different from the words that formed in my head initially. “May you learn the importance of family. May you know intimately the feelings I have felt, the fear that I have known because of you. May you learn the hard way what it’s like to have your babies threatened in the safety of their own home!”
“No!”
he shouts, backing away from me as the curse hits him full in the chest. His face goes pale and pain thrashes in his eyes. “What have you done?”
he whispers, tripping over the chair behind him and falling.
“I am The Maledict. Did you expect me to sit back while you broke into my home and threatened my babies? Did you expect me to just let you get away with it? You are my enemy. And I don’t fuck around about my family!”
He looks at me wide-eyed, and slowly gets to his feet. “You’re going to live to regret this curse, Maledict.”
He picks up the chair and throws it, making it skitter forty feet down my driveway. “I am a Chaos Eater—I’ll eat well whether my family is safe or not, but you? You’re going to wish you’d listened to me, you stupid bastard. Chanda, Matt. I’m leaving now. Stay out of the Cage if you know what’s good for you.”
I glance behind me to see that those two have flanked me, both men looking as grim as I feel. Tio, gets into a little red pickup and takes off, flipping me the bird as he drives away.
“What was the curse?”
Chanda asks darkly. “The exact words, not the intention.”
I repeat it for him as I spoke it, without the power of the Maledict behind the words.
Chanda looks stricken. “You cursed his babies?”
he whispers, shocked.
I narrow my eyes at him. “I cursed him to know what it means to have his family threatened.”
Chanda stares at me in disbelief. “Fuck, Deejay. Just. Fuck.”
He shakes his head in disbelief before turning on his heels and walking away.
Matt looks at me, jaw tight as he pulls me into a hug with his good arm and holds me tightly. I wrap my arms around him and hold him close as I feel the exhaustion from the drain on my power and the emotional upheaval of the last few minutes catch up to me.
Tears spring to my eyes as I think about what Tio could have done while I was sleeping. “How did he even get into the house?”
I cry, finally letting the panic and fear have me. “How was he able to get his hands on our babies? He was in the nursery and I didn’t know it! I should have known it!”
“I heard the twins; I saw him with them, and I couldn’t have stopped him if he’d actually hurt them. I wasn’t strong enough to fight him. I’m so sorry; I failed to protect them,”
his voice cracks with shame.
His pain snaps me out of the wreck I’m in. I grab his face, forcing him to look at me as I stare into his eyes. “No. You aren’t equipped to fight a Chaos Eater using his chaos arms against you. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You did nothing wrong at all.”
He takes a shuddering breath, squeezes his eyes shut and takes a few more. When he calms down, he opens his eyes again, giving me a grim look. “He told me I was a Knight in a game of chess and he’s trying to keep me away from the King.”
“Who exactly is playing this game?”
I wonder. “Unless it’s Erroll. Of course it’s Erroll. He wants you out of the Cage because somehow the King is going to end up there? But is Erroll the King or is that Helix? Surely not Tio. And why would any of them do anything that would put them in the Cage with you?”
“Do you know how much I want to get in the Cage just to find out what the hell is going on right now?”
“Probably about as much as I want you in the Cage,”
I sigh. “Matt, our enemy is actively trying to keep you out of the Cage, probably working on information from a Diviner who has told him that if you get in the Cage you’re going to kill someone important them. Maybe it’s Tio, maybe it’s Erroll, maybe it’s any number of other players we haven’t even been introduced to yet.”
He frowns thoughtfully and nods. “I’m getting back in the Cage, aren’t I?”
He says it like a question, but we both know the answer.
I take a deep, calming breath, and let it out before answering. “If it were me by myself, I would never get in the Cage, but it’s not me. It’s you, and you’re the fucking Reaper. Whatever they throw in that Cage, you can defeat. I will be here with our kids, and I will make sure that our family is safe. But we need to consult the Diviner living with us first because it’s possible that that path will lead you to your own death, and I am unwilling to let you go so easily.”
Matt nods then takes my hand and leads me back inside, locking the door and setting the security system again. Unfortunately, these security measures are only meant to keep out the less motivated of the worst of society. A motivated non-human like Tio could breach the system with the right kind of magic on his side: a Diviner who can give him the passcode, a bit of sleight of hand to get the key.
Inside, we head back upstairs together. He breaks off to go get dressed in his room, assuring me he can deal with his dislocated shoulder, so I let him go, checking on the twins. But I can’t just check and leave. I stay and watch and before I know it, Matt joins me, standing beside me. He slips his arm over my shoulders and holds me, a strong, silent rock for me to stand on.