Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
Callum howls, falling forward, his shoulders shaking with his pain-racked sobs.
My heart breaks as I watch him shattering into a million pieces.
I can’t see how we’re going to get out of this cellar alive.
Even if I die and give Callum my power, he wouldn’t survive – not really – because he would no longer be Callum.
The goodness in him would be replaced by the evil at the heart of the Western family. But there’s no way I can watch him die.
There’s only one thing left for me to try.
I unfurl my senses, reaching out to Elizabeth. But there’s nothing. Just the same strange silence that envelops this cursed house.
‘Fine,’ I say, ‘take my powers.’
Callum groans. ‘No, Holly. Don’t do it. I don’t want to be like him!’
‘And I don’t want you dead,’ I say.
‘It’s not your choice. I decide if I live or die. I decide who I am, and I’m not like him.’
‘Exactly,’ I say. ‘You decide who you are, with or without my powers, and you don’t have to become what this maniac wants you to be. I’m a goner either way, but at least you’ll get to live.’
I wish I could crawl across the room and hold him one last time. Look into his beautiful eyes and see the spark that dances there. Gently touch my lips to his and say goodbye.
‘What do I need to do?’ I ask, turning away from Callum’s anguished face. Edward Western looks at me, unbearably smug.
‘I knew you’d make the sensible choice,’ he says.
He draws a weapon from his jacket, and I gasp.
I know that weapon, I’ve seen it before.
I can just make out the engraving on the blade.
It’s the symbol of the Cup of Power, the Poculum Vitae, with Latin words surrounding it, etched into the silver metal.
It’s the same dagger that pierced Elizabeth Howell’s breast in this very cellar.
He moves towards Callum, unties his great-nephew’s hands and lifts one of his arms in the air.
‘Get away from me, you son of a bitch.’ Callum struggles, trying to yank his arm back.
Rosing puts a small bronze chalice on the floor. I’ve seen that before, too.
‘I’m going to kill you,’ Callum seethes at Rosing, hissing the words through clenched teeth. The man gives him an obsequious bow.
‘I look forward to serving you, sir.’
Western drags the knife across Callum’s arm, leaving a long, deep gash. Blood oozes from his wrist, dripping into the vessel below. But Callum doesn’t flinch; his jaw is clamped tight, his face stony.
Edward Western gathers up the bowl and whispers some words over it. I finally get to hear the mysterious chant, and it’s definitely no prayer. It’s a language that I don’t know, but I recognise it as something old. A thick, guttural growl rolls over his tongue with throaty clicks.
He puts his lips to the edge of the bowl and drinks, dabs his mouth with a handkerchief, then turns the knife on himself, drawing blood from his own arm.
‘Hold him, Albert,’ he says.
Rosing pulls Callum’s head back and wrenches his mouth open as Western pours the blood down his great-nephew’s throat.
I gag as Callum coughs and splutters, spitting frothy blood across the floor.
Western tosses a piece of cloth towards Callum, who holds it to his arm, his face dark with fury, blood dripping from his chin.
‘Now it’s your turn,’ Western says, as he moves towards me. ‘Untie her please, Albert, and help her stand.’
My heart thunders. I’m in real trouble. I reach out for Elizabeth again with a desperate plea. Elizabeth. Cousin. I’m here but I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. If you want this to stop, you have to help me. NOW. We can do this together. Cousin, talk to me. Come to me .
Rosing hauls me up, and Western presses his nose to my throat and breathes deeply. I recoil, my stomach roiling.
‘I smell the power on you,’ he says. ‘You are strong. I don’t think you even know how strong you are.
’ He glances over at Callum with a self-satisfied smile.
‘It was worth the years of waiting to find this one for you, boy. You are incredibly lucky. You will have power like you can’t imagine. You will finally have a family again.’
‘I had family. You killed them.’
‘I am your true family.’
Callum sneers. ‘You really need to let that go, old man. You’re obsolete.’
‘You are wrong. This has been the role of every man in my family and those who have devoted themselves to us, like Rosing here. It’s time to restore the Westerns to what we should always have been – policymakers, presidents, kings.
I will be the one to do it, and you will carry our name forward through history. ’
‘My name is Jefferies.’
‘That’s your father’s name. It is not yours.’
Callum’s gaze flicks to me and I see exactly what he’s doing. Needling Western. Distracting him, to give me time to do whatever I’m going to do. As the men joust, I call out to Elizabeth one last time.
Elizabeth, I’m ready to let you in. I’m ready to let in the spirit of every woman this family has murdered .
I stand perfectly still, frozen in hope, my shoulders slowly slumping with each passing second as nothing happens. Then, just as I’m about to give up, something crashes into me.
The air explodes from my lungs as I hurtle backwards.
I plant my feet firmly in the dirt, clench my teeth and ball my fists.
Wind rushes around the room, my hair lifting and swirling as the spirits slam against me, one by one entering my body.
I shake uncontrollably as faces flash through my mind, their hearts thumping as one with mine, their voices wailing in my ears.
Then an inky haze descends over my eyes.
I hear Callum calling my name over and over, but I can’t answer him because I can’t speak.
There’s so much power coursing through me, I feel like I could burst from it.
I didn’t think this through. But it’s too late, the spirits are a part of me now, roaring and screaming and thrumming inside me.
I press my hands to my ears, trying to block out their howls, the pounding in my brain almost unbearable.
I plead for them to stop, for everything to stop. Please, I can’t take this. Please, please stop .
The voices fall silent, then I hear Elizabeth’s voice in my head, Cousin, he is ours .
Edward Western charges towards me. Then he stops, freezing to the spot, as horror and fury fight each other, contorting the beauty of his face.
‘Grab her, Albert!’ he yells.
Rosing whimpers as he edges towards me, then he squeals as my arms slowly begin to rise. He’s lifted into the air, suspended above me, his neck bent as his body presses against the wooden beams that run the length of the ceiling.
He lets out a strangled cry.
Don’t make me kill him. Please don’t make me , I beg the spirits.
Another squeal, and he falls to the floor, landing with a nasty crunch. He screams in pain.
‘I will not show you that kind of mercy,’ Western rails. ‘Whatever you are doing, woman, stop it. Now.’ He has the silver blade to Callum’s throat.
‘Do whatever you have to, Holly!’ Callum calls. ‘Stop him—’ He sucks in a shocked breath as Western presses the knife edge into his pale skin, and a bead of blood collects on the blade. He is prepared to kill his own family to save himself. No surprises there.
Help him!
The knife begins to vibrate, then it’s ripped from Western’s grasp and shoots across the room, embedding itself in the wall.
Western throws his head back and roars. He rushes at me with his hands outstretched.
‘You will not leave this house alive!’ he screeches. But as the words leave his proud lips, he crumples to his knees with a wretched cry.
He tries to stand, his body quaking, but his legs buckle below him again as an invisible force pushes him to the ground. A stomach-churning snap rings out, and he howls in agony as his leg breaks.
A chorus pours from my mouth, forming one voice: ‘ We will make you suffer for the sins of your family. For all of us, trapped for centuries .’
The broken man drags himself towards the stairs.
But as his fingers touch the first step, my arms lift again, and Western’s body rises.
With fear now taking the place of pride in his eyes, he hovers in the air, his torso twisting unnaturally back and forth, strangled cries falling from his lips, until he suddenly drops, landing heavily on the wooden steps, his mouth wide open in shock.
‘You can’t s-s-stop us,’ he groans. ‘We are power. We are eternal. We will—’ But before he can finish what will be his final words, his golden eyes glaze over, and he slumps forward, silent at last.