Chapter 20 Grace
GRACE
They dragged me through the back hall of Cherry Smoke and my head cleared for one small stretch of time.
The music faded behind us as the lights dimmed.
My boots scraped over the floor as I was practically being lifted.
I could feel Hellsing’s hand clamping around my arm, Seraphine’s fingers pressed into my other side, steadying me.
I saw the worry on his face when he glanced down at me, and I noticed the tight line in Seraphine’s mouth which meant this was serious.
Midnight Wytch.
That was where they were taking me.
Smart, I thought. It was All Hallows’ Eve.
Seraphine would know what to do and she was the perfect person to help Hellsing.
She’d be strong enough to do it. The night belonged to the dead, to spirits, to every dark thing that crawled out from under old tombs.
If there was any night, she could reach whatever was inside me and rip it out, it was this one.
I tried to tell them. I tried to say thank you. I tried to say hurry. But my mouth did not move.
As we stepped out into the street, I felt the cold, damp air hit hit my face, and I breathed it in. The Quarter was full of people in costumes, laughing, stumbling drunk along the cobblestones. Music spilled from every doorway, and eerie painted faces turned toward us, as if watching us.
Hellsing set a fast pace. His grip never loosening on me. His jaw flexed and the drawl in his voice deepened when he barked at the crowd to move.
“Clear out, y’all,” he said. “Make room.”
People shifted when they saw the cut on his back and the look in his eyes. Not to mention what we must have looked like at a distance, the bat in Seraphine’s hand, the smear of dried blood on the wood, Harley Quinn being dragged down the street by a Cowboy, of course they’d make space.
Inside my head, something pressed down.
There was distance between me and my body. I felt it in every step. My legs moved, but the command did not come from me. My fingers twitched, my shoulders rolled back, my hips swayed, my chin lifted, and yet I was not the one setting that posture.
I was behind my own eyes, pinned there.
I tried to pull forward. I strained. My throat tightened with effort, but nothing happened.
A voice slid into the space right behind my thoughts.
Stay put, witch.
Bael.
The name dropped through me like a stone.
I pushed against it. My soul felt thin. Every shove drained more of me. Pieces crumbled and fell away inside my chest. There was a slow withering that had nothing to do with flesh. I was peeling away from myself, flaking into nothing.
I tried to scream as my body kept moving.
We turned a corner and the noise of one bar faded, the hum of another grew. The Midnight Wytch appeared ahead, solid and dark, the painted sign above the door still had not been replaced.
“Move, kid,” Hellsing snapped. “Open up. Now.”
Josh, the young man Hellsing had told me about didn’t argue. He pulled a key from his pocket, unlocked the door, and pushed it in.
We stepped inside. The air in the Midnight Wytch was thick with incense and herbs. The shelves held jars once again. Bundles in canvas and candles lined the counters.
Seraphine got to work, setting up tall black candles and lighting them up to burn along the counter. She ordered the men to get to work. Josh placed a bowl of water at the center of the room, its surface still. Seraphine drew a circle of chalk along the floor, ringed with salt and small stones.
She handed Hellsing an old witch’s book. “Do what you do best.”
He looked down at the pages and shook his head. “These won’t work.”
She grabbed him by the arm, tugging at him, almost shaking him to react. “You are the strongest one out of the two of us, Exorcist. I do not need you to lose faith right now. Either snap out of it or get the fuck out.”
Hellsing stared at her for a moment, then glanced back at me, concern etching his brow. I wanted to tell him to do it, that I was okay, but I couldn’t and my frustration just kept growing.
He lined the room with sigils, covering the inner line in careful strokes. When finished, Seraphine took my hand, and we moved toward the circle.
I wanted to run in the other direction. I wanted to throw myself into Hellsing’s arms and cling to him and tell him I was slipping away. I wanted to bury my face in his neck and breathe him in, feel his hands on my back, hear him mutter comfort into my hair in that soft voice he kept just for me.
My legs stopped at the edge of the circle. I tried to force myself over the salt line, but it was to no avail.
Suddenly Hellsing was there, lifting me into his arms and carrying me over it.
“Gracie?” He said my name, as if questioning if I was still here but I only felt myself smile at him.
“Sit her down,” Seraphine said.
He guided me to a low wooden chair that waited inside the ring. His touch was careful. His hands were gentle even when he was desperate. He pressed me down onto the seat and crouched in front of me.
“Grace,” he said. “Cher, look at me.”
I looked at him because Bael let me.
Hellsing’s eyes were bloodshot. His throat was bruised where my fingers had dug in that morning. There were red lines across his chest, hidden now under his shirt, but I remembered them. His drawl skimmed over my name, warm and rough.
“I’m right here,” he told me. “We’re gon’ fix this. You hear me?”
I tried to answer. The words built in my chest. I pushed them up to my tongue, but nothing reached my lips.
Instead, my face softened. My mouth curved. My voice came out steadily.
“I’m fine,” my voice said. “You’re overreacting.”
I heard it. It sounded like me, but it was not me.
Bael laughed in the space behind my thoughts.
“See?” he said. “They believe me. They see your face. They hear your tone. They feel your skin. They want you to be fine. They will swallow anything I feed them.”
Hellsing frowned.
“The hell I am,” he said. “You cracked a man’s skull and smiled through it. That’s not you, Grace.”
“It’s more me than you can admit.”
“That ain’t you, Grace. Don’t tell me you’re fine. Not when you ate raw meat off my counter. Not when you laughed in the shower while you touched yourself for me, as if it were all a game to you. We are not a game.”
“But I sure do like paying with you, exorcist.”
Heat burned my face. Shame. Fear. A thin thread of arousal slid through it, unwanted and undeniable, because my body remembered every moment with him. Bael coiled around that memory and tightened his grip.
He spoke again through my mouth.
“You keep bringing up the fun parts,” it said. “Maybe I should do it again and see what else you remember.”
Hellsing’s jaw clenched.
“There,” he muttered. “There you are.”
“Did you think I’d go far, Exorcist. This pretty body is warm and wet,” it hissed at him.
“You son of a bitch, I will take you back from the hell you came from.”
I screamed in my mind as Bael took one of my fingers and I watched it bend so far back, heard the crack and felt the pain.
“Keep it up, Exorcist, and soon I’ll be snapping her neck.
Peter reached for my hands. His palms closed around my fingers. His skin was warm, the pads of his fingers calloused, familiar. The contact sent a jolt through me. I tried to squeeze back but my fingers stayed loose.
Seraphine stepped in behind him. She laid one hand on my shoulder and the other on top of Hellsing’s. The pressure of her touch sank deeper. The air shifted. The candles flickered. The surface of the water trembled in the bowl.
“All right,” she said. Her voice was calm, controlled. “Grace, I need you to listen. You are not alone in your head. We know that. I need you to find yourself and hold on. I’m going to call, and when I do, you answer. You understand?”
Yes, I screamed inside. A low, bored sound rolled through my mind.
“She talks too much,” Bael said. “I prefer your lover. He’s weaker, he bleeds more.”
Rage flared in me.
“You could have killed him all those years ago,” I shot back, referring to when Hellsing was a boy. “You had your chance. You pushed him to the edge. You could have snapped his mind, ripped him apart, ended him.”
Bael was silent for one heartbeat, then he laughed.
“Isn’t that the point?” he said. “Where is the pleasure in ending a game on the first move? He suffers more when I take my time. You suffer more. That is the beauty.”
My stomach twisted. My soul felt thinner. Each word from him stripped something away.
In that darkness, I heard Seraphine begin to chant.
The language was old. The words rolled out of her throat in a smooth, relentless stream. Hellsing bowed his head for a moment, then lifted it again. His eyes never left my face.
“Stay with me, Grace,” he said. “You hear those words? You grab onto them. You do not let that bastard drown you out.”
I tried. I stared at his eyes. Blue and dark, lines at the corners from too many sleepless nights. There was fear there. There was love there. There was a stubborn refusal to let me go.
I reached for him. My hands lifted from his and my fingers rose toward his throat.
I did not send that command.
Bael did.
Hellsing froze and my thumbs pressed against the bruises on his neck. Pressure built. His breath hitched.
“Grace,” he croaked.
I screamed.
It was silent. It tore through the inside of my head and never touched my mouth.
“Stop,” I begged. “Please. Stop. Leave him alone. Take me. Do what you want to me. Leave him.”
Bael tightened my grip for one pulsing beat, then let go all at once.
My hands dropped back into my lap.
Hellsing sucked in air, eyes wide, hand going instinctively to his throat. Seraphine stopped the chant for a second.
She looked from him to me.
“Peter,” she said. “You all right?”
“I’m fine,” he rasped. “Keep goin’. He’s playin’.”
He.
He said he.
I latched onto that because my love knew it wasn’t me hurting him. I could never hurt him.
“Hellsing,” I pushed, every ounce of strength pouring into one word. “Hellsing.”