Chapter 43
“Yes. That’s it. Go inside,” Kerry said gleefully as she watched the group enter the building. She could barely contain her excitement.
She wished she was inside to see their faces, but that was fine.
It was enough that they were doing exactly what she wanted.
For beings with such authority, they were so easily manipulated.
If she had known this, she would’ve done something sooner.
But she had never dared to even allow herself to think the things she was now.
Kerry rubbed her hands together as she watched from inside her vehicle.
She took a deep breath and smiled. Throughout all the years of her life, she had thought she knew what confidence felt like, but she hadn’t a clue.
Not until recently. Now, she fully embodied the sentiment.
She was self-assurance. She had to give credit to the Ancients.
Had they not spoken to her, she never would’ve had the courage to do anything.
Her smile grew as she spotted Elodie through a shattered window. Kerry started her engine and put the car in drive. There was no need to stay. The mist knew exactly what to do.
Elodie shook her head. This couldn’t be happening. She stared at those coming at her, each wearing her father’s face, each holding the same knife he’d brandished when he attempted to take her mother’s life.
“No,” she said and gathered her magic. “I stopped you once. I’ll do it again.”
One of her fathers paused and tilted his head to the side. “Elodie,” he said in a voice that took her back to her childhood. “I’d never hurt you.”
“You hurt me. You hurt us all. You were a monster,” she proclaimed.
His forehead wrinkled in a frown. “What are you talking about?”
She shook her head. She wasn’t going to get into a debate.
A sound behind her drew her attention. She glanced over her shoulder.
There were more of him. Dread churned in her stomach.
This was a nightmare. She’d had plenty of them since arriving on Skye.
She had survived them. She would endure this one, as well.
Just as soon as she killed each and every incarnation of her father.
Emotion caught in her throat. She had loved him deeply.
She couldn’t stop thinking about how he used to tease her and her siblings.
How loudly he’d sung off-key while making breakfast on Saturday mornings.
How he always found fun things for them to do as a family.
She faltered, her magic dimming. Their family had been close, their love strong.
Her father’s smiling face shifted in her mind, replaced by the monster who had choked her mother, punched Elias, struck her, and then tried to stab her mum.
That was her father. He had carefully hidden his true self from all of them.
And his blood ran through her veins. His tainted, evil essence.
Maybe that was why she hadn’t hesitated to take his life. She was a monster, too.
She would show him again.
She would kill him however many times he entered her nightmares. He had no business in her life. If she could remove every memory of him, she’d do it in a heartbeat. Elodie felt her magic rushing through her. It collected in her palms.
“No more,” she whispered as she threw out her hands.
Scott dove out of the way just as Elodie released her magic. He heard someone curse behind him as the others quickly moved.
“What the bloody hell?” Elias shouted.
Scott was closest to Elodie. He’d heard her words, seen her face. “She thinks we’re her father.”
“All of us?” Balladyn asked, veiled somewhere behind Elodie.
Rage colored her face as she shouted, “Stop talking! You mean nothing to me!”
This didn’t make any sense. Why had he been kidnapped so Elodie was brought to the mountain?
Scott had thought that whoever was behind this wanted to kill Elodie.
Seemed he had been wrong. But he couldn’t work out why they were using her in such a way.
Not that he wasn’t thrilled that Elodie was alive and well.
Well, as good as someone could be with her mind playing tricks on her.
Scott suddenly got a sick feeling in his stomach. Something wasn’t right. Not at all. The building had been too easy to get into. At first, he’d thought it was because of the combined strength of those with him, but now he wondered if it had been something else entirely.
“Someone do something,” Sonya whispered.
No one moved. Elodie stood in the middle of the ground floor, her blue eyes blazing with anger and hatred. Scott didn’t need to see her magic to know that she had it gathered around her, waiting to strike.
Scott slowly got to his feet, and Elodie’s gaze fastened on him.
There was a soft sound behind him, and then Balladyn’s voice whispered in his ear, “We need to attack her together to subdue her and figure out who messed with her mind. Keep her focused on you.”
Scott nodded once to let the Reaper know that he’d heard and agreed.
“What?” Elodie asked Scott. “Why did you nod? Do you think I care about you? After what you did to Mum? To Elias?”
“I’m no’ your father,” Scott told her.
She snorted. “I wish that were true. I’m tainted with your blood and your sick nature. That’s why it was so easy to take your life.”
“Elodie,” Scott said as the others gradually closed in on her. “Look at me. Really look at me. I’m no’ your father. I’m Scott.”
“More lies. How many did you tell us? Was anything you said true? What was it that broke inside you that made you want to hit your wife and your kids? Would you have eventually struck Edie? Don’t worry about answering.
I know the answer. I did everyone a favor by ridding the world of your sickness. ”
Scott swallowed, his heart aching for the woman he loved.
She probably never would’ve said anything of this to him or anyone else.
It was good that she was getting it out.
He just wished she didn’t believe that he was her father.
Scott glanced at her hands. She hadn’t known the amount of power she had at fifteen, but she did now.
She had killed her father as easily as snuffing out a candle—and she could do it to him. To all of them.
But Scott wasn’t afraid. He didn’t want to die, but if he lost his life in an effort to save Elodie, then that was fine with him.
“Look into my eyes, Elodie,” he told her as he took a step to her. “Look deep. See me.”
Elodie didn’t want her father anywhere near her. She held up her hands, her magic eager to be released. “Don’t come any closer. The mask you wore for our benefit is gone. I see the real you, and it’s twisted and grotesque, just like your soul.”
“I’m Scott,” he said again. “You’ll see that when you look at me.”
She shook her head. “More tricks. I’ve had enough to last a dozen lifetimes.”
“No trick. Just me,” he replied.
Elodie saw him take two more steps. They were measured, controlled, but she wasn’t fooled. He wanted to get close to her. She noticed that the other incarnations of her father had also begun to close in around her.
“Time for you all to die, once and for all,” she declared.
As she released her magic, someone jerked her arms to the side, causing the magic to crash into a wall. Elodie screamed her frustration, but it didn’t do any good. They had her—all of them.
All except the one who had been speaking to her.
She tried once more to rid the room of the manifestations of her father when suddenly, everything went black.
“What the fuck?” Elias murmured as he stared down at his sister, who he’d carefully lowered to the floor when she fell unconscious.
Scott ran a hand down his face, sweat beading on his forehead because of how close he’d come to dying. Everyone in the room had been affected by what’d just occurred.
“It has to be a spell,” Eilish said.
Rhona nodded. “Let’s find out.”
Scott’s heart still pounded erratically as he joined the other Druids in a circle around Elodie.
He tried to concentrate on the spell they were casting, but his mind kept drifting to the things Elodie had said.
He felt Rhona’s gaze and looked across the way at her.
Worry filled her face. He didn’t know if it was for him or Elodie.
Scott then cleared his mind and focused on the spell.
“There,” Sonya suddenly said. “I feel it.”
Eilish winced. “Me, too. It’s…”
“Sickening,” Elias finished.
Scott sucked in a breath when it slammed into him. His stomach roiled in response. “It isna a spell. It’s a curse.”
“Bloody hell,” Filip murmured tightly.
Rhona squeezed her eyes closed. “It’s staying just out of reach.”
Balladyn came up behind her and put his hand on her shoulder. The surge of his magic joining theirs made Scott lightheaded, and he wasn’t the only one. The curse didn’t stand a chance now. They stripped it from Elodie in seconds.
When it was gone, Scott bent at the waist, his hands on his knees as he tried to shake the feeling of the curse. Sonya coughed. Eilish gagged. Filip sank heavily to the floor. Elias dropped to one knee. Rhona slumped back against Balladyn. Each of them had felt the wrongness of it, the malevolence.
“Something doesna feel right about any of this,” Ulrik said.
Scott lifted his head. “Because nothing’s right about it. I thought I had been abducted to set a trap for Elodie.”
“We all did,” Eilish said and swallowed loudly, her skin ashen.
Elias got to his feet and swayed slightly. “I expected to find Elodie dead, or at the verra least, injured. No’ ready to attack us.”
“I wasna the trap,” Scott said as the truth hit him. His gaze then dropped to the floor where Elodie remained unconscious. “She was.”
Balladyn’s eyes flashed with fury. “For us.”
“Aye, but which one of us?” Broc asked as he tamped down his god, his blue skin and wings disappearing.
Sonya shrugged. “Maybe all of us.”
“Nay.” Filip shook his head as he awkwardly gained his feet. “They couldna have known a Dragon King, Warrior, or other Druids would come.”
Rhona glanced at Balladyn. “Which means it was either you or me.”
“Doona forget, they knew I was here,” Elias added.
Scott sighed. “As well as Filip and me.”
“But we stopped Elodie and the curse,” Broc said. “It’s over.”
Scott remembered how the mist had come from the top of the cavern. He lifted his head and saw nothing but darkness. A flare of light shot up from Ulrik to the ceiling, where they spotted the mist roiling violently.
That was the only warning they got before it barreled down at them.
Elodie’s eyes snapped open. She gagged as she recalled how the mist had been in her throat. She rolled to the side and dry heaved. It was then that she heard the shouts. Her head jerked up as she saw her friends battling the mist.
She didn’t know how she had gotten to this place or even where she was. She didn’t know how her friends had found her. But none of that mattered. Elodie jumped to her feet and immediately began pummeling the mist with magic.
“Together!” Rhona shouted.
The Druids made a circle as Ulrik, Balladyn, and Broc continued battling the mist with their magic.
Then the Druids locked hands, the strength of their magic swirling around them.
Elodie found Scott to her left and met his gaze.
He winked at her, and she wanted to cry at the sight of him.
He had gotten free, but she didn’t know how.
She would find out, though. First, however, they had to eradicate the mist.
The mist slithered between them. It locked onto Elodie’s legs and began crawling up her body.
She ignored it and instead concentrated on her magic.
When it reached up to wrap around her neck, she remembered how it had choked her in the mountain.
Her magic faltered. That gave the mist an advantage.
Balladyn blasted it with an orb, and the mist reared back.
The reprieve was all Elodie needed to return her attention to the circle of magic.
The Druids’ voices rose as their power grew and swelled. Together with Ulrik’s, Balladyn’s, and Broc’s magic, the mist continued shrinking until only a sliver of it slithered out a window and into the night.