Chapter Thirty Nine
“What do we do, Meadow?” Dina asks. We’re all three together, Jaak and her on either side of me while I hold the nightmare book.
“I don’t know,”I tell her. “This is way more than a dozen. How are there so many?” There’s at least fifty mages in front of us.
I can’t see any of their faces and they haven’t said a word since they entered the room a minute ago.
They came in and formed orderly lines but now they’re still as statues like they’re waiting for an order.
She shakes her head. “Maybe they recruited new members? There aren’t this many businesses in town, not by a long shot.”
There’s movement on the mezzanine level and I almost scream when I see Charlie start to take aim at one of the mages.
Thankfully, Mort grabs him and drags him away from the balcony.
Jaak sees the same thing I do but doesn’t say anything.
Not yet, Charlie, just wait. I silently will him to understand that firing into a group of mages isn’t the best survival move we could make.
We still don’t know why any of this is happening, or who is doing it.
We need that information if we’re going to get to the World Eater.
The sound of hinges creaking breaks the silence. I can’t see who it is because of the wall of mages, but one by one they start to move until there’s a pathway through them and what I see makes no sense at all. Zero sense in any universe.
“Eleanor?”
Jaak points his battle axe at her. “HA! I knew it! I knew it all along! I knew you were evil, you crustacean. I should have slain you when I had the chance!”
“Oh my gods. The whole crabs are evil scuttle thing was real.”
“Eleanor’s a crab?” Dina asks.
I look at Jaak and shake my head. “I am sorry I doubted you. I promise, if you ever want to behead another old woman I’ll support you. I love you.”
“That warms my heart to hear. I love you.”
Dina shakes her head. “That’s not as romantic as you both think it is.”
“Okay, she’s kind of right about that. Any old lady who scuttles though, you have a green light,” I amend and Jaak nods.
“Acceptable.”
The old woman walks towards me but she doesn’t seem so old anymore.
The flitting way she moved before is back but there’s more power in it and the closer she gets to us the younger she becomes.
When she comes to a stop in front of the mages she’s a beautiful woman with long curly blond hair.
If I didn’t know better I’d say she was my age.
She’s graceful and statuesque, the cardigan and wool skirt she was wearing before is gone.
In its place is a sparkling golden gown and heels. She looks like a movie star.
Eleanor’s eyes move over us slowly. “So good to see you again,” she pauses and I don’t miss the way her gaze comes to Jaak, “Jaakobah, my servant. It has been far too long since I’ve looked upon you.”
“What?” I look at my husband and see he’s white as a sheet. He looks like he’s seen a ghost. “But if you’re his master then you’re-”
“A supreme being, perfect and wondrous in every way,” Eleanor stretches her hands over her head and grins. “Yes, I know. I’m impressive but I am a god. I bet you’ve never seen such a perfect being as me, have you, mortal?”
Jaak moves in front of me. “Do not speak to my wife, Eri. Your quarrel is with me.”
“I’m going by Eleanor now. It's classy, so get the name right.”
“Whatever your business here is, you can deal with me. There is no need to bring this world into it. Release your hold over these weak souls now.”
Eleanor pouts. “You have always been so particular about the women in your life. Always the protector, so valiant. That’s what I love about you.
It’s always been your downfall, you know.
You’re so easy to control by the ones you love.
Why, all I have to do is this and you’d come crawling to me on your knees, wouldn’t you? ”
I can’t see what Eleanor is doing because of Jaak being in the way but I soon find out.
The this is a searing pain that explodes in my head and I scream.
I’ve never felt anything like this before.
It’s like a white hot poker being shoved in my brain.
I try to fight it, to throw up my magic against it but there’s no fighting it.
Eri’s power cuts right through my defenses and into me.
“Meadow!” Jaak turns and holds me up when my legs almost give out. “Stop this, Eri!”
“I said my name is Eleanor!” she screams and the next thing I know Jaak is falling to his knees. He keeps a hold of me and I grab his hands as another scream rips through me. I can barely see anything, my vision is wrong. It’s like I’m looking at the world through broken glass. “Now crawl!”
“Stop it!” Dina tries to charge Eleanor but she’s taken down as soon as she takes her first step. She lands on the ground next to Jaak and I. Whatever Jaak’s master has done to me, she must also be doing to Dina with the way the other woman thrashes on the ground.
Jaak bends down to look at me. “I love you, you will always be my heart,” he whispers and then he’s gone, crawling forward towards Eleanor.
I try to reach for my power, for anything, but it’s not there.
I’m cut off from it. There’s only the pain and misery Eleanor forces down my throat.
I can barely even feel the bond between Jaak and I, but there is something I can feel.
Snapping and alive. Hungry as a World Eater and ready to devour me.
Dread. It raises its ugly head and forces itself front and center.
See, it says, you were always going to lose. The voice sounds like my parents, like the cult leaders, like every wrong person I trusted. How did you think you were going to save everyone? You can’t even save yourself. You’re still the same weak girl you’ve always been, Meadow.
“Enough, Eri!” Jaak bellows. “Release her!”
It's right. I am the same girl I’ve always been. I see myself the way others have, timid, quiet, always nervous and easily frightened. I thought I changed. I was wrong. The voice winds deeper, digs right into me, it fills my ears until it’s the only thing I can hear.
“Why can’t you be normal, Meadow? Why can’t you just be normal? Why?”
“I don’t know,” I choke out the answer. I roll onto my back and it’s the ghosts of my parents that look down on me.
Their eyes are full of contempt, faces twisted in ugly sneers.
The light around them bends and moves. Why is it doing that?
My parents keep speaking but I focus on that bend of light, that ripple in the air around them.
“You need to be punished, Meadow. You know that, don’t you?”
I know what’s supposed to come next. The basement. The darkness and the loneliness but that’s not right. The light is all wrong. They’re wrong.
“Take me, Eri.”
I hear that, even with the voices telling me how wrong I am. I roll onto my side and see Jaak. He’s kneeling, axe on the ground and hands held out in front of him in supplication.
“Take me,” he says again.
“No.” I reach for him. “No.”
She claps her hands and walks towards him.
“Ohhh, is my favorite little toy ready to come home again? You know I came here just for you, Jaakobah. I would have gotten to you sooner, but I just couldn’t manage to break that hold the Fates had on you.
Something about me being your maker, or whatever. ”
I lift my head to see Eleanor. She’s moving closer to him, a smile on her face.
She’s so achingly beautiful, but there’s something not right about her.
The light, I realize. It’s moving the way it did with my parents.
I look back to see they’re still there, still talking to me and reaching but never getting closer.
They’re not real. It’s an illusion, it has to be. I swipe at them and my hand goes right through them. Bingo. Nothing but smoke and mirrors. Is the same true for Eleanor?
I reach for Jaak but he’s too far away. Just out of reach in front of me.
“I thought I lost you,” she croons. She’s only a few steps away from us now.
“But someone had to pay the piper. Who knew they would notice a few extra worlds consumed? It’s not even like they were using those stupid places but you were the best I could offer them on such short notice.
The Fates don’t care who pays, so long as someone does.
So I want to thank you for your sacrifice, Jaakobah.
You served my sentence and as a gesture of goodwill, I won’t rip your wife apart in front of you. ”
She looks my way with a wink. “I’ll do it when it’s just us girls.” Eleanor makes a face when she sees me dragging myself across the floor. “Gods, mortals are pathetic. I do not know what you see in them, Jaakobah. We’re going to have a loooong talk after this.”
Jaak flinches when she speaks. I hate seeing it. “Spare her. That’s the deal, Eri. You take me and you spare her, you spare this place and I will serve you again.”
She wags her finger at him. “Ah, ah, ah, you already made that deal, sailor. No dice. One soul, one world. You have no more chips to bargain with, Jaakobah. You’re mine. All fucking mine and-”
Eleanor’s voice is cut off suddenly with a thwack. At first I don’t understand why but then I see it. There’s an arrow in her, the broadhead of it sticks out of her chest. She looks down.
“Who the fuck?”
I know who. Charlie. I’m not alone in any of this.
He’s out there fighting, and if he’s fighting Mort will be too.
I can’t let them fight alone. I can only fight Eleanor if I connect with Jaak, if I give into the power of our bond.
I shove myself forward the extra inch I need and grab Jaak.
The connection is instant. The memories flood in like water spilling from a broken dam.
I see the man with the coin turn into Eri. The coin she catches vanishes with a wisp of smoke and she holds her hand out to Jaak, who takes it. He’s only a child.
“You’ll never see her again.”
I see him grow into a man. He looks exactly like my Jaak but he isn’t at the same time. He kills, he relishes it, he’s mindless in what he does. There’s no stopping him. Cities crumble, worlds die and go dark in his shadow.
Eri puts her hands on his head. “Time for a little upgrade, lover,” she whispers in his ear.
The sword I saw before returns and in it I see what happened to Jaak.
I witness his transformation from man to beast, his eyes though, remain the same.
They’re not the silver of the Minotaur, it’s his dark eyes that stare back at me from the polished metal.
When he turns towards his master he is the Minotaur, fully her creation.
There’s no humanity in him. I can feel it.
He’s empty, hollow, the only thing alive in him is what she’s poured into him.
Everything else has been burned out by the demon she’s made him into.
I can feel my husband slipping away, right through my fingers, turning into that version of himself with every second and my heart breaks.
“No. I don’t allow it.”
Broken heart or not, I can do this. My heart could shatter and stop beating and I would not surrender my husband to someone like Eleanor.
I reach for the rage Jaak feels and I make it my own.
I drink from the river of anger and hate, the destruction, the blood lust, it all becomes mine.
I force it all into my body, into my heart.
I swallow it down until I’m full. Only then do I release my husband and stand.
I’m going to kill Eleanor.