Chapter 17 Whitney #2
I wonder whether Xolotl would try it again if he were here. I was so stupid, thinking I could really change who he was with food.
Pure delusion.
“What?” Izzy asks. “You’re pulling on your ear. That means you’re thinking about something.”
When I turn to talk to her, I see something behind her.
It’s a long-handled dagger, and it’s just sitting on the counter of the little apartment we portalled into.
The blade’s serrated, and it looks terribly sharp.
As we’ve been moving from place to place, I’ve slowly seen the truth: I’m wearing Baba Yaga down, and I’m putting Leonid and Izzy both at risk with this stupid plan to try and save my life.
If I just died already, Xolotl would go to sleep and stay that way.
They’re doing all this, risking themselves, all to try and save me.
I’m not a martyr, truly, but any pragmatist would see the same equation. “Izzy, I love you. I always have, and I always will. Tell everyone I love them all.” I snatch the dagger off the counter, and before anyone can stop me, I plunge it into my belly.
Or at least, I try.
The dumb dagger literally just zoink, disappears. I claw at my red dress, and I hate that there’s literally not a single scratch. Gah.
“Nice try,” Baba Yaga says. “Non-martyr.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m a pragmatist, remember?” I glare at Izzy. “I don’t like them traveling with us. This guy’s powerful, and he’s bad news. They’re going to get killed doing this.”
“What do you suggest?” Leonid asks. “Should I take Izzy and the rest of your family and just disappear to Russia? Baba Yaga could come and make sure the horseman over there leaves us be.”
“Yes!” I clap my hands together. “That’s what I wanted from the start.”
Leonid rolls his eyes.
Sweet, kind Izzy hauls off and slaps me across my face. “You are such a jerk.” She spins on her heel and sulks in the corner. Before I can even try to smooth things over with her, there’s a strange popping sound outside.
Baba Yaga cackles. “It’s about time.” She flings her hands forward and the door to our little place bursts open. “Get in here.”
“You don’t order me, witch.” Thanatos saunters into the tiny room, and I realize how terrifying he is when Xolotl’s not by my side. He towers over Leonid, who was hands-down the most horrifying individual I’d ever met when we were first introduced.
Thanatos has a dark, foreboding presence about him, and the whole room darkens when he’s inside it. “You want to blast her full of light?” He arches one eyebrow. “I hate the idea. You’ll kill her.”
“But would it break the bond?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I doubt it. That bond’s tied to your dark energy, so unless you can burn every single speck of it away, the bond will remain. If you do burn every speck away, then she dies. So your two goals are diametrically opposed.”
Izzy whimpers.
Leonid asks, “Could we break it just enough that Xolotl goes back to sleep?”
Thanatos steps closer, and then he snaps his head toward Izzy. “You’re mine, too.”
Izzy startles.
He smiles. “What a treat to see two of you.”
“Do you even care?” I ask.
“I haven’t had the luxury of caring. Any attention of energy I send your way makes you a target.
” His laughter’s dark and bitter. “But because I never allowed myself to care, to keep you safe, you’re nothing more than works of art to me.
You’re creatures that should never have existed in the first place, but here you are, swimming against the current of the world.
But if your lives end. . .” He shrugs. “Not my problem. You know what is my problem?”
I shake my head.
“Pissing off Xolotl. Did you hear what he threatened?”
“You’re afraid of your own brother?” Lechuza scoffs. “Pathetic.”
“We exist because he grew lonely,” he says. “You four witches are all balanced, more or less, but we horsemen aren’t. Xolotl was the first of us, and he petitioned for more. Our existence is why he sleeps. Did you never ask about that?”
Baba Yaga shakes her head. “I don’t recall that.”
“It’s the deal he made so he wouldn’t be alone.
More horsemen, less time awake.” Thanatos sneers.
“He was the first, and he’s the strongest. He could return us to dust, and he will if I try to take his toy.
” He sniffs me, then. “But I don’t like any of this.
I don’t like him having a toy, and I like it even less that she’s somehow linked to me.
” He strikes out then, hitting me with lightning, fire, and earth at the same time. I sense all three distinctly.
The magic punches into me and. . .disappears just like the knife.
“Even now, even separated from her, he’s actively protecting her with his magic.
” Thanatos swears loudly. “I think it’s all very ill-advised.
When he finds you, he’ll destroy you all for taking her.
” He doesn’t even leave the house before cutting out.
He dives through the floor, leaving a disgusting, dirty hole.
“You’re better without that loser,” Baba Yaga says.
Lechuza sighs. “Can you really blame him? He could die if he upsets Xolotl.”
Baba Yaga rolls her eyes. “With the lack of personality he has, who would miss him?”
It’s obvious that Lechuza would.
She hasn’t so much as greeted me, but I’m supposedly the product of the love or affection between her and Thanatos. Motherly, she is not. Even creating life doesn’t turn everyone into a mother, with humans either, I guess.
Shortly after, bolstered by Lechuza’s presence and aid, we make another jump.
Then we make two more. Baba Yaga’s panting after that, and I know we’re close to the end of her ability.
The occupants are put soundly to sleep, and then we gather in the family room.
“It’s time,” Baba Yaga says. “He’s drawing closer, and I’m too tired to continue. ”
Lechuza nods. “Very well.”
“You still want to try this?” Leonid asks.
Izzy nods. “It’s still her best chance of surviving him, right?”
Leonid shrugs. “It seems so, but say the word, and I’ll fight him with everything I’ve got.”
Izzy’s eyes well with tears.
“No way,” I say. “That would be suicide. You didn’t watch him take out the entire military force in California.”
Leonid rolls his eyes. “I could do that, too.”
“He was created to offset all four of us,” Lechuza says. “We couldn’t defeat him, so there’s no way you could.”
“I agree, my child. Your sacrifice would be in vain.” Baba Yaga stands, and she’s breathing more easily. “We’re near that massive botanical garden, as well as a labor and delivery unit.” She beams. “You chose well, sister.”
“I come here to recharge when I require it.” Lechuza bows her head. “You take what you need.”
Baba Yaga takes her sister’s hand, and I can’t help comparing their calm and supportive interactions—light magic—to the brothers’ brawling and attacking each other in front of that small hotel. Their purposes are so different, and so are their mannerisms.
For some reason, I felt more at home with the brawling boys.
I discard that thought, and I turn inward, like Baba Yaga told me I should. “I can sense the bond,” I say. “It’s tied to something inside of me.”
“Good, girl. Now, focus on the magic it’s tied to, and I want you to try, as we flood you with light, to break away from the darkness.”
I can’t help thinking of Thanatos, saying I would cease to be who I am if this works.
I’ll essentially be burning away half of myself if they manage to flood me with life.
But being half of myself is better than not existing at all anymore, plus I can keep the best parts, right?
The bright and happy parts? “I’m ready.”
But before they can do anything, there’s another big pop down the hill.
“It’s too late,” Baba Yaga says. “He’s here.”
“I have an idea,” Leonid says. “Maybe we can convince him to break the bond so it won’t hurt him if she dies.”
“What?” Izzy asks. “This wasn’t the plan. It won’t work. We should run again.”
“He’d follow immediately,” Baba Yaga says. “I fear we’ve already lost.”
“Lost, nothing.” Leonid wraps me up with the strings from the curtain blinds, tying me to a chair. He gags me with a kitchen towel. Then he waves Izzy and the witches into the side office. “Hide. Now.”
And then Xolotl’s here. I can’t help it. When I see him, my heart leaps. I want to call out to him. It’s the bond, I’m sure. The stupid bond is why I feel better now that he’s here.
Even though we were running from him. Yep, I have Stockholm Syndrome bad.
“Whitney.” He steps closer. “You’re alright?”
I nod tightly, feeling guilt over the deception.
Xolotl’s cobalt blue eyes are burning. He looks absolutely livid. I’m petrified when Leonid steps into view. “You have a choice to make, Xolotl. You’ll have to decide how much Whitney matters to you. You can either free her from your bond, or I’ll kill her right here, right now.”
Leonid grunts beside me, and he sways a bit, but he straightens.
Baba Yaga steps out from behind him. “Ah, ah,” she says. “He’s mine. You can’t take him so easily.”
“Maybe not easily,” Xolotl says. “But I can take him.”
“Wrong answer,” Leonid says. “I suppose you don’t care whether she lives or dies after all.”
I half expect the knife to disappear inside of me, but maybe Baba Yaga is keeping Xolotl’s magic from working properly. Because when Leonid plunges the knife into my throat, it shears through muscle, tendon, and lodges into bone.
I can’t help looking up at my brother-in-law, as blood sprays out all over my body. “Thank you,” I mouth.
Xolotl roars, and before I know it, I’m floating through the air toward him. But the world around me darkens by the second. At least, until I feel the energy flood into my body.
My limbs flail around stiffly.
Baba Yaga cackles. “You can’t save her. You can only kill.”
“No! I won’t take her. Her soul can’t pass.” Xolotl spins, still holding me.
“You’d turn her into a ghost?” Baba Yaga laughs, but it’s ugly. “So be it.”
“No!” Xolotl bellows. “You will save her. Do it now, or I’ll destroy you and everything you’ve ever touched.”
“I think when she dies, you’ll go to sleep.” Baba Yaga’s smiling. “That will give me plenty of time to figure out ways to placate you when you awaken.”
“There isn’t a way to placate me,” Xolotl says, his voice almost too calm after all that yelling. “I’ll destroy you and everything else.”
“She’s not the only one who can save Whitney.” Leonid points at me. “I’m the one who caused the damage. I could fix it.”
“Then do it,” Xolotl says. “And I might spare your life.”
Leonid shrugs, and I can barely see it. “I could, but I don’t want to. You bonded her against her will, and now you won’t free her. At least this will set her free.”
“Save her, and I won’t retaliate, even if filling her with that much healing light breaks the bond.” Xolotl’s warm, strong arms around me make me smile. I’ll die happy.
Only, I don’t die.
As I feel my spirit leaving, light floods my entire body. I feel like I’m standing on the surface of the sun. I can barely make out the tiny black anchor holding me to my body.
It burns.
The pain’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. Every single cell in my body’s throbbing, rejecting this light, this brightness. The bond dwindles, and shrinks. Pain explodes all the way up the line. I scream. My back bows outward, and I shudder.
And then I discover what real agony is.
I’m not sure how long it lasts, but it’s a very, very long time. When I wake, Xolotl’s gone.
“It worked.” Izzy’s smiling at me. “He’s gone to sleep!”