25 - Syrsee
A hedged bet
Lucia just stares at me , her mouth open in shock.
She doesn’t have a plan. “You have no fucking clue, do you?”
“That’s not true,” she says, putting up a hand. “I know things, Syrsee.”
“Then start talking! Because in case you can’t tell, we’re done here! This is it! The endgame! What do I do?”
She looks around the mist, her eyes darting here and there like she’s in a frantic panic. “The mirrors!”
“What about them?” I hiss.
“Look!” She points to one nearby and I walk over.
“There’s nothing in there, Lucia.” I’m growling at her now, so angry. “I can see the fucking mirrors! What am I supposed to do with them?”
But her blank stare back is all the answer I need. She doesn’t know.
“That’s great.” I throw up my hands. “That’s just great. This was your big plan? Bring me here to the mist and… what? Hope that we’d figure it out?”
Her shoulder comes up in a shrug. “Maybe?”
“You are such a bitch.”
Lucia lets out a breath. “Just calm down.”
“Calm down ? I’m carrying some kind of new evil creature inside me with the power of eternity, or whatever, and its father, the actual essence of evil, wants it back, Lucia. Wants me to give over all my power to it, in return for an eternal dreamwalk with Ryet! I’m not calm, OK? I’m fucking scared!”
“Just shut up and let me think!” Then she turns her back and starts walking.
“Where are you going?”
“Shut up!” Then she turns and walks towards me again, only to do an about-face and walk back the other way. Pacing. She’s pacing. Thinking.
I take a deep breath, trying to take her advice. I need to calm down. I need to get a hold of myself and stop this fear. No one makes good decisions in a state of fear. So… I breathe and start walking towards her as she is walking towards me.
We pace like this, on opposite ends of the mist, trying our best to be rational people, even though in this state, neither of us even qualifies as people.
I don’t even know where my body is. In the lodge somewhere, I guess. But who knows? It could be anywhere. I could be stuck like this forever.
Oh, my God, this fear, it’s consuming me.
I stop and look down at my feet, trying to breathe myself into a state of calm. Trying to play back all the hints I’ve been given over the years. Through all the conversations with Paul, and Ryet, and my grandma, and Lucia, and Tristin, and Zusi, and all my years at the Guild.
I’ve been given pieces. Many, many pieces of this puzzle.
All I need to do is fit them all together.
Suddenly, there’s a spark in my mind. And I look up to find Lucia looking at me.
“I know what to do!” We say this at the same time.
Then we laugh and she points at me. “Go! Tell me your idea.”
“I need my pieces, of course! I need to pick up all the pieces of me that are scattered around the world and get my fucking magic back!”
She nods, blinking. “Yes. Of course! I mentioned that, remember?”
She did. And it wasn’t even that long ago, but we both forgot. Which, I suppose, is fine for her because she’s dead. Like really dead. Headless and everything. But I’m not. “I think I’m crazy. I think whatever is happening to my body, it’s fucking with my head, Lucia. Because I can’t think straight.”
“In your defense, you’ve been through a lot.”
“I think it’s the blood. Ryet was feeding me magic that Paul made and…” But right in the middle of the sentence, I lose my train of thought.
“Wow. OK. I didn’t know that,” Lucia says. “But also, I mean… not to bring up trauma or anything, you did get raped by the Darkness, darling.”
I frown. “I did. I’m a wreck.”
Lucia brightens. “It’s fine. I’m here. I’m here to…” But she’s forgetting things too! She must read this thought on my face, because she puts up a hand. “I’m here to remind you.” And even though this isn’t at all helpful, she beams a smile at me.
“Remind me of…?”
She holds up a finger like she’s about to tick off a list. “Scattered pieces.”
I wait for the second finger, but that’s all she’s got. “Oh, my God. We’re doomed.”
“No. I’m here to… tell you… that… you’re supposed to… Oh!” She brightens again. Like she just remembered. “The baby!”
“What about it?”
“It can’t be born.”
“No shit, Einstein! Even I can figure that out.”
“No.” She lets out a breath. “I mean, yes. It can’t be born. But you are pregnant.” I make a face of ‘duh.’ Which prompts her to raise a hand at me. “So you just… split yourself in two.”
I scoff now. “I thought the whole point of this was to gather up my scattered pieces so I can get my power back? How does splitting me into more pieces help? And anyway, I don’t know how to split myself. Paul did it. Or… maybe it was Josep. All I know is that it wasn’t me.”
“It wasn’t Paul or Josep,” Lucia says. “It was magic. Your magic. Not theirs.”
“Well, then they used me. Which is pretty much the same thing. It’s more than I know how to do, at least.”
“I’m sure that will change.”
But I’m not. “I don’t feel very magical, Lucia. In fact, I don’t feel magical at all. The only thing I know how to do is dreamwalk and that’s definitely not going to fix this. That’s just gonna make it worse because as far as I can tell, the dreamwalk is just a way to escape. It’s not real. It feels very real when you’re there, but it’s not. It’s just a trap.”
Lucia is quiet for a moment, but then she starts looking at the mirrors. She points at the closest one. “I think that these mirrors are your pieces. And to gather up your pieces, you only need to walk through to the other side and take yourself back.”
I look around at the mirrors because this actually makes sense. At least in this crazy, fucked-up world I’m not living in, it does. “And then what?”
“Well, if you get your pieces back, you’ll be powerful again. And if you’re powerful again, you can split in two. One to keep the baby inside you forever, and one to just be yourself.”
“Sounds like something out of a nightmare, if you ask me.”
Lucia holds up a finger. “Three! The nightmare! Of course! One. Gather up all your pieces. Two. Get your power back and split in two. Three. Imprison the baby inside you forever. The nightmare.”
“Gross.”
“Yeah.” She nods her head and sighs. “This whole thing is gross.”
“What about Josep?”
She blows out a long breath. “I don’t know. We’ll have to hope that Paul can take care of that part. Let’s focus on what we can control. Your mirrors.”
I walk over to one, staring intently into it, but I can’t see anything. “How do I make it work?”
“I feel strongly that you need the Coyrah mirror. We need to get that first.”
“ We ?” I ask, feeling both hopeful and doubtful at the same time. Because it would be nice to have someone with me. It would be awesome, actually. I’m so tired of feeling alone.
“If you agree to take me,” Lucia says, “I’ll come with you.”
Now, excited as I am at this prospect of a teammate, we’re talking about Lucia here. I might not actually know her, but I feel like I’ve got a handle on her essence. So I ask, “What do you want in return? Because I know you’re not doing this out of the goodness of your heart.”
She’s going to object here. Get offended or something. And she even starts to do this, but then she gives up. “Fine. I do want something. When you’re done with it, of course, I want the Coyrah mirror.”
I actually deflate a little. Because I really thought she was gonna help me. “You’re lying.”
“About what? I just told the truth.”
“You want my mirror.”
“That’s what I said, Syrsee.”
“But that’s all you want. You don’t even know how any of this works, do you? You’re just guessing that the Coyrah mirror works these mirrors in the mist.”
She’s getting ready to lie, I can tell. But she stops herself. “Fine. I don’t exactly know that for sure, but I do know this—that mirror is the source of your power. Why else would the Guild have had it all these years? Why else would Tristin bring it back to you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Because it’s yours, Syrsee. And that means it has power. It’s the only power, that I can think of, at least, that might help me avoid eternal nothingness. And I get it. Why should you care about my end? You shouldn’t. But…” She shrugs here. “It would be nice if you did.”
This might be the most truthful thing Lucia has ever said to me.
It would be nice , I have to agree there. I mean, if I were in her shoes. Or my own shoes, actually. It’s about being alone. Lucia, like me, has probably been an outsider her whole life and ‘nice’ is the perfect word to describe what she is asking for. It would be nice to have someone show up in my moment of greatest need and give a fuck.
To help me get past it, just because they care .
“Fair,” I say. Letting out a long breath. “But I want to know more. How did you find out about the mirror?”
“I’ve been in that Coyrah dreamwalk hundreds of times. In fact, that’s the only dreamwalk I’ve ever taken. That’s why I had so much control over it. I know that place. And while I have never seen that mirror in the dreamwalk, I noticed something about that moment the original Coyrah tamed the aquis equī. She looked into the water.”
I shrug. “So?”
“The water is a mirror.”
This feels weak, and I’m not convinced, but then again, that girl Echo was looking into a pool of water when we found her. “A mirror is a… door?”
Lucia makes a noncommittal shrug. “I think so. This idea didn’t really come to me until I saw Tristin give you the Coyrah mirror. That’s when all the pieces started falling into place. So there has to be something to the mirrors. Why else would they be part of the human vampire legend?”
“Hmmm. Maybe. But it’s all we have to go on, so I guess we start there. One more question though. Why the ice castle? Why would you want to go there?”
“You said it yourself. The dreamwalk is a trap. My soul was sold a long time ago. I’m using you to hide from the Darkness right now, but if Josep wins it’ll come to claim me. And it will get me. Even if it doesn’t win, I won’t get a reprieve. The ice castle is my only option.”
“Because it’s the only place you can go.”
She nods. “Yes. And while it is a trap, it’s a trap I can live with. I’m OK with a delusion if it means I won’t be cast into the pit of eternal emptiness. And anyway, it’s not like I have a lot of choices. So… what do you say? Is it a fair trade if I come with you for support and guidance?”
She doesn’t know any more than I do. All she was ever after was my power. Typical these days. But I don’t say no to her request. Because she has been helpful. I doubt I would’ve even gotten this far without her, so she deserves a reward if we win. “If I don’t need it, then… fine. But I’m not promising anything. I might need it, Lucia.” I shrug. “I might. So that’s the best I can do.”
She sucks in a deep breath and slowly lets it out. “Deal.”
We shake on it and then we turn back to the mirrors and just look at them for a moment.
They all look the same and this worries me. On the other side of each mirror there is a gold and purple mist, but there has to be something specific about each of them. If not, I’m screwed. Because I don’t know where all my shattered pieces are. Even knowing that Paul has a small child version up in some village by White River might not be enough, so if the mirrors depend on me knowing the specifics of where I’m going, I won’t be able to find even one of them.
I turn away from the mirrors and look at Lucia. “OK. Let’s go get my mirror. Are you ready?”
She nods. “I’m ready. What do we do? Hold hands or something?”
I have no clue, but I nod my head and take both her hands in mine anyway, if only for moral support. “Close your eyes and… I dunno, concentrate on me, I guess. I’ll do the rest.”
I think.
After she closes her eyes, I close mine too. And then I concentrate, thinking about where I last saw that mirror. It was in Ryet’s cabin. Ryet had just told me the truth about what I was, a vampire baby maker. And I was sick from drinking those vials on the counter. Despair. Loneliness. Regret. Contempt. Estrangement. Fear. Shame. Guilt. I was in bed and Ryet was taking care of me. I showed Ryet the mirror and then we both looked in to it. That’s how we traveled to Paul and Josep.
That was the day everything turned.
Suddenly I’m somewhere else. For a moment, it’s just darkness and I’m sick all over again as the horror begins to manifest right in front of me.
I’m on the bed inside the tower room of Paul’s lodge. Josep and Paul are on either side of me, drinking. Ryet is hovering over me in his demon form and we are…
But that’s not him. It’s the Darkness. And let’s just call it what it is. It’s evil. And the evil is putting a baby inside me.
When this was really happening I was in a library having a witty conversation with Ryet. It was his gift to me, I guess. So I would never have a memory of what happened.
But like everything else in my life, it was nothing but a trick.
I turn my back on the scene and look down at my hand. I’m holding the mirror because Ryet and I used it to fall into the bed with Paul and Josep, and that’s what I came for, so I close my eyes again and wish myself away.
When I open them Lucia is staring back at me, her face the incarnation of horror. She places a hand on my cheek. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know about that.”
I pull my hands out of her grip and let out a breath. “Never mind that. I have this.” And I hold up the mirror. “Let’s go.”
I turn towards the closest mirror. I have no idea what I’m doing, but I don’t ask Lucia for help. She doesn’t know either and I’m just tired of everything right now. I’m tired of being used. I’m tired of being food. I’m tired of all of it.
But no one is coming to save me. If I want to find a way out of this, I’m just gonna have to do it myself. I walk right up to the mirror and hold up my Coyrah mirror so that I’m looking into a vast illusion of infinity. A mirror, inside a mirror, inside a mirror ad infinitum .
And then something weird happens. My eyes lock with the eyes of the first mirror image of myself and suddenly I’m somewhere else…
Ryet is on the floor of the cave where Josep lives. His wings are nothing but tattered feathers and his body is covered in bite marks.
Josep is yelling and when I look over to the right, I see him throw Echo’s limp and probably lifeless body against the cave wall. He’s tearing her to pieces.
Then he stops and I hold my breath.
Can he feel me?
Can he see me?
When he turns his head and those black pits for eyes lock on mine, I know he can.
He rushes towards me, mouth open, like I’m the next meal on the menu here.
But I fall backwards, out of the mirror, and land on the misty ground.
Lucia is next to me and we look at each other in horror.
“We’re too late,” I say. My heart filling up with sadness. “I’ve failed him. Ryet’s dead. He has to be dead. No one could survive that.”
But Lucia is shaking her head as she gets to her feet and grabs my arm, pulling me up with her. “You’re wrong. He’s immortal, Syrsee. He’s not dead. And if you don’t find your pieces and get your power he’s going to live in that state for all eternity. Now let’s go !”
She drags me back towards the mirror, and I recoil. “No, I don’t want to go back there.”
“Then you had better find yourself. Because we’re out of time.” And then she pushes me and I fall into the mirror.
I panic and frantically search for… something that will take me to a piece of myself. And, of course, I end up in the bedroom of a little girl sleeping in a crib.
Of course this would be the first piece. Of course . And even though I didn’t have a clue two seconds ago of how I would need to take this piece back, now that I’m here, looking down at the sleeping toddler, I absolutely understand.
I need her blood.
Because that’s my blood and all my power is in the blood.
“Oh, God,” Lucia says. And when I look over at her, she’s got her hand covering her mouth in horror. Because she knows too.
As I am thinking this, my teeth begin to ache. And when I bring a fingertip up to check them, I realize I have grown fangs.
Lucia’s eyes are big now. Obviously, she didn’t see this coming.
I’m the nightmare.
I knew this. But I really never expected it to get this bad.
Sensing I might back out, Lucia grabs my arm. “That’s not a child, Syrsee. That’s you . And as long as she exists, you will be weak. This is not a pep talk, this is the truth. Now do what needs to be done.”
This is what it comes down to. I have to feed on the girl. And when I’m done, I will have to go back, enter another mirror, and do it again. Maybe hundreds of times.
“It’s either this or let Ryet suffer, Syrsee. Think about that. Think about Ryet in that cave. That’s happening right now and whatever happens going forward, it’s not going to get any better. And I know what you’re thinking—you’re thinking that Paul will save him. But did you see Paul? Where is he? If you hope for that outcome and it doesn’t work out, then what? What happens to Ryet if you back out?”
“I’m not backing out. I’m just trying to get to used to the idea that I’ll be feeding on people who are not Ryet. It feels very different.”
“Well, you shouldn’t be feeding on anyone, Syrsee. You’re not a vampire. You’re not like me, either. You’re food .” I shoot her a look, but she waves it off. “The fact that you’ve been feeding on anyone is a huge clue that you’ve been prepared for this.”
My eyes narrow down. “What?”
“Obviously, this is part of the plan.” She points at the little girl in the crib. “You were meant to take your pieces back. Why else would you have a blood tolerance?”
“What do you mean, blood tolerance?”
“People can’t drink blood, Syrsee. It makes them violently ill. And I’ve never heard of a Black witch drinking blood. Not unless it was during the Long Drink. And that was just a way to kill a Black witch, not make her more powerful.”
She’s right. The blood drinking is wrong. Not just ethically, but physically. I shouldn’t be able to do it. I shouldn’t have the craving.
But Ryet and I, we aren’t exactly normal representatives of our species, for lack of a better word. He was craving food back at his cabin while I was craving blood.
Paul did that. Something in his blood when we did that initial feeding with Josep probably got it started, but we also ate and drank those puddings and potions.
It changed us. It made Ryet more human, I think. But it made me more like them.
It turned me into a blood drinker.
Paul set me up. He set us both up.
Understanding suddenly fills me up as this new revelation changes my perspective for what seems like the hundredth time since I said goodbye to my grandma in that cabin. This little girl, she isn’t just a part of me, she’s a reservoir of power. She’s a backup plan. A hedged bet. Or maybe just the winning move of a very long game I didn’t even know I was playing.
It’s not my game, that’s another thing I realize. It’s Paul’s game and I am but a chess piece.
I walk over to the crib and pick the girl up. But to my surprise, I don’t hold a little girl in my arms. I’m holding a copy of her. Perhaps just the essence of her.
Without thinking further, I lean down, sink my new teeth into her soft neck, and take my blood back, immediately recognizing the power contained within. It’s a warm feeling, but also a sense of strength.
When I’m done, the little girl in the crib is dead and the one in my arms is nothing but a shrunken husk of skin. I drop the husk and as it floats to the floor, it disintegrates mid-air.
There’s no coming back from this, that’s perfectly clear. But I can’t think about the consequences now. I have a lot of drinking ahead of me.
Lucia and I walk back through the mirror, but instead of coming back out into the gold and purple mist, we enter another space, or time, or place. I’m not sure. But there’s a woman there who looks like me. Same eyes, same body, same hair.
She doesn’t notice us because Lucia and I aren’t actually here. She’s a ghost and I’m back in the mist. I walk over to this copy of me, place a hand on her shoulder, and the same thing happens. A copy of her slips away from her body. And after I drink this copy, the witch in the room is dead and her husk has disintegrated while falling to the floor.
This time, the power is more than just warm, it’s hot. And the strength is in my mind as well as my body.
We leave and enter the next room and I do it all again.
Over, and over, and over.
I take back my power until I am whole.