23. Adam
Adam
Taking over the body—wait, no—taking back my body from the Slayer is always a weird sensation. It’s like someone is tugging at my soul and ripping me apart to be front and center.
When I come to, my body is sluggish, but a rumpled-from-sleep Iris stands before me.
“We have little time,” she says. I don’t catch the next thing she says, but before I know it, her fox is right next to her, dropping a book into her hand.
I shift further away from her on the bed. “How?”
“I paid your family a little visit. Horrible people, by the way, I’m so sorry. It can’t be read by a supernatural. I need to see if you can read it, not out loud. We don’t know what the spell might do.”
When I go to reach for the book, the pain is instant, and I look down at the red, bubbling skin on my hand.
“It fucking burned me,” I hiss and Iris curses.
She holds the book open for me so I can see the pages.
“Can you read anything on here?” she asks and I have to squint, but the words shift in front of my eyes, like it’s adapting to my language.
The chant that my family spoke is clear as day, along with something else. Things that look like runes along with what I have to assume is the Slayer’s name. But that’s it.
Iris flips the page, and I have to hold myself together before I break down.
The sacrifice of blood is the cost, your reward, your family name living forever.
By summoning a great slayer, good fortune and health will be bestowed on you.
No longer will your eldest son belong to you, but to the never-ending void.
With this spell, your sacrifice and slayer will become one, something that can never be undone.
The spell must be cast at the late high moon, the chant only active by the mouth of true, intending mortals.
Your sacrifice will not be in vain as the slayer and vessel become one, only to be parted by the true death.
To continue your family’s fortune, the next generation must prepare a new sacrifice for the cycle to start again.
It feels like I can’t breathe as I read the words.
I’m trapped like this forever. Me and this fucking vampire slayer are now one and it’s all because the people who were supposed to love me most betrayed me.
My mother’s words when I was a child ring around my head. You don’t belong to me.
How long were they planning this? Did they know the moment I was born that they were going to sacrifice me? If so, why did they wait so long to do it?
When I look up at Iris, she’s looking back at me with watery eyes, like she can feel my pain, even though she doesn’t know what I just read.
“There’s no removing him from my body. The only way we can ever be separated is through true death.”
“Adam, I’m so sorry,” she says, and she easily wraps her arms around me.
I can’t remember the last time someone hugged me, and why it feels so easy with her, but I wrap my arms around her and hold her tight as I let the reality of it all settle in.
“What am I going to do?”
“I-I don’t know,” she says, and I wonder if I should just give up.
I’ve felt the tug of the Slayer before, that he wants total control. Maybe I should just give it to him.
“Adam, look at me,” Iris says, pulling back and grabbing my face. “Someone gave your family this book, they must have promised them something. I’m going to find out who it is and I’m going to make them pay.”
“I don’t care about revenge,” I say.
“Well, you should. Sometimes, vengeance is the only thing that keeps us going. You’re still here, okay?”
“I can’t fucking sit in the backseat of my own body for the rest of my life.”
“We’ll figure it out. The Slayer wants to please me and he hasn’t been able to push you out yet. There has to be a reason for that.”
My head hurts as I rub the side of my temple. “I was free of them, you know. I mean, I don’t know if I’d call myself happy, but I was doing what I loved. Sure, no one was buying my paintings, but my photographs paid the bills. I had my own place. I never should have come back home.”
“Hey. You’re not to blame here. Honestly, the Slayer isn’t either.”
I give her a worried look, and she shakes her head. “He doesn’t ask to be sent back. He’s summoned. This falls on your family and whoever gave them this book. We’ll find them and we’ll make them pay. Don’t give up, not yet.”
“Why?” I ask her, feeling more hopeless than I’ve ever felt in my life.
But as she cups my face and stares at me with an intensity that’s never been geared toward me, I wonder if she could be my reason.
Fuck. I’m starting to sound as insane as the Slayer.
“Because you matter, and maybe, just maybe, you could have a semblance of a life. I’ll talk to the Slayer. He’s more reasonable than I realized so we’ll figure something out.”
I want to look away from her, but I can’t.
“I’ll be here alongside you the whole time. I’m not letting you fade away to nothing. Just hang on.”
I open my mouth to reply and I’m whisked away to the back of my mind as the Slayer takes over and I watch in horror, unable to do anything, as he stares at the book in the witch’s hands.