Chapter 45 Hector
HECTOR
Istood in the middle of the very place this all began.
My family home was untouched in time. The cold, ash-coated fireplace was at my back, the stones pressing into my spine to keep me upright.
Ahead of me was the living room I had watched my parents die within.
The same cream sofa, the same mahogany dining table where we’d shared many a meal.
I took a deep inhale and smelled my mother’s incense that was heavy in the air: sage, lavender and bergamot.
“Hello?” My voice cracked with the weight of damning emotion as I regarded the empty room.
Tomin was nowhere to be seen. Wherever Bahmet had stolen us away to, it seemed he was keeping us separate. My eyes kept falling upon the closed door as if he, and his Hunters, would come bounding through it any second, ready to kill me. Finish the job they failed all those years ago.
“Really unoriginal, Bahmet,” I called out again, turning in circles as I searched the dark corners for a demon with glowing eyes. “You must be really uninspired to bring me back here. It was only a few months ago the last trial had me facing the past like this. Have you run out of ideas?”
The darkness hissed, snapping sharp teeth. I spun my head around swiftly, noticing the sudden presence of a being in the room with me.
Bahmet lounged on the sofa, legs spread wide and his arms extended on either side of him. He’d not been there a second before, but that wasn’t to say I’d ever been alone. The demon lord had simply waited for the right moment to reveal himself.
“You have got it all wrong, Hector Briar,” Bahmet said, gloved fingers drumming the cushions as if he was impatiently waiting for something.
“This is not a trial. This is the grand finale. And you, are my victor. But of course, you know that already. Your meddling in my affairs has manufactured this very moment. Oh, how proud you must feel. Which, did you know, is a sin.”
I swept my hands out to the sides, and bowed my head with the dramatics of a Shakespearian actor. “Have you got a cake and balloons hidden around here? A glass of champagne maybe? I do love a good old celebration.”
Bahmet leaned forwards, huffing a silver mist out his goat nose.
“I would not get ahead of yourself just yet, Hector. Just because you have won, does not mean I am necessarily desperate to crown you. I have been in the body of a Briar before, and she repressed me. What is to say that you will not do the same?”
I pouted. “How could you think so lowly of me?”
“Easily, actually.” Bahmet’s suit creased as he stood. The demon took his time flattening out the lines with a brush of his hands, even straightening his thin black tie back into place. “My wit is telling me that you are not trustworthy.”
“If this has got anything to do with the fact I have petitioned to destroy you, then I hardly think wit has anything to do with it. The signs have been pretty obvious.”
Bahmet snorted, red eyes darkening to pools of old blood. “You are not making your case. In fact, every word out of your mouth is only making my decision easier.”
“Your decision being?” I looked around for effect. “Because last I remembered, I’m the final witch. The new Grand High I believe. Unless you want to try possessing Tomin, and see how you get on in a human’s body?”
“Or…” Bahmet began to pace, hooves clicking against my mother’s polished floors.
“I could simply wait. I suppose, if I do not accept you are my victor, it would take some time for the witches of your world to grow desperate again. In time they would seek the Witch Trials, begging for my help to save them from the horrors of the world. Hunters killing witches in broad daylight, hate spreading like wildfire amongst villages, towns, cities, countries… the world. Just like Eleanor Letcombe called for me all those generations ago, another witch will do the same. And, as you can imagine, I have grown rather comfortable in my ability to be patient. I can wait, bide my time, and find a witch who will not destroy me the moment they get the chance.”
My nails dug into my palms so hard it was impossible not to wince. Bahmet noticed my stiffening and laughed, the sound like two stones grating against one another.
“I think this is what you call a checkmate, is it not?”
I shook my head, trying to steady my breathing.
“I never liked chess. Boring game for old, boring men. I’m more of a Monopoly guy.
And if we are going on that analogy, you’ve rolled a dice and miscalculated.
You think you’re landing on Mayfair, but you’ve skipped it and gone back to Go.
Yes, my intention has been to kill you.”
“But,” Bahmet sang, looking to the ceiling as if the light fixture were more interesting than me.
“But… I need you. Just like Eleanor. I need to save witches now, not wait until hate wipes our kind from history. I need you now.”
“Ah, well we are in a pickle then. You need me, my power, my access to magic far greater than anything Hekate could have ever given her children. Now, Hector, the question is… do I need you?”
“Most likely not.” I lifted my hand, focusing on the shroud of dark magic that I had lifted into place before I had left Kai all those hours ago. “Saying that, I think you want this. Need it. Right?”
Bahmet sniffed the air, then snapped furious… no, starving eyes at me. The demon sensed the secret I had kept from him, the power that Kai had returned to me willingly. My last grand request—one that came with too many risks to worry about.
It had been I who’d opened the portal for my allies to leave the trials.
I’d waited until I knew Verena was back with Romy, Kai and Arwyn.
It had been me all along. I couldn’t contemplate what state Kai was in, but the last time I’d seen him, he was leaning weakly against the door to the tavern, the colour draining from his face… life slowly leeching out of his body.
I didn’t have long.
Bahmet’s tongue fell from his furred maw, lapping the air like a hound. “My power.”
“Mine, actually,” I corrected, flexing the magic the demonic shard had given me.
“Although, if you crown me your victor and help me save the world, it would be yours. Only if. So, you see, I do have something you need. Consider it a trade of good will. Something for you, in return for something for me.”
“The boy. Kai, is it? He would die without it. Fall apart like a puppet without strings.” Bahmet smiled, delighted in the death he expected I was going to confirm.
“Actually, I have a feeling Kai is going to be okay in the end.”
It was one layer of our plan. Kai would give me the shard of Bahmet’s power back. His body would fail, over time. I hoped that they’d all got out, and found the help they needed to keep his body going until I returned.
Romy, even with Verena returned, would never have left me here.
But knowing that Kai was suffering, she wouldn’t have hesitated.
It was a fail-safe, this decision. And, it wasn’t my idea.
Kai had been the one to add this to our master plan, knowing that Bahmet wouldn’t take kindly to making me his victor…
unless he would get the one thing back that threatened him.
“I could kill you now, but I haven’t. And I won’t either.
” I stepped towards the demon lord, eyes dropping to the floor in a sign of mock surrender.
“Crown me the winner. Use my body. Retrieve the power that I stole from you when I was nothing but a child in my mother’s stomach. Make yourself whole again.”
Bahmet could barely contain himself. There was a nervous, perhaps frantic, energy about him. Although he was motionless, his eyes never left me. His body was taut as if any second he would need to jolt forwards and stop me running.
I was caught in his web, except he’d mistaken me for a fly. We were both spiders, waiting to see who would strike first.
“Kn—kneel.”
The command was hot and sharp as a whip of fire.
I did as the demon asked, lowering to my knees before him, head bowed.
“Submission suits you, Hector Briar,” Bahmet said, running his gloved hand softly over my hair.
“I know,” I said to the floor, not bothering to look at him again. I sensed I had won this before the final act was complete. “I’ve already been told. Arwyn raves about it.”
“Love.” Bahmet snorted. “It can make you do a multitude of stupid things. It can make a mother stand before her family and take an athame to the gut. It can make a man hide behind illusions to protect the person he loves from despair. It can even make the strongest of wills crumble in the embrace of a burning pyre. But you, Hector, are not doing this for love. Are you?”
I nodded, a bead of sweet rolling down my temple. “That’s right. I’m doing it because I have to, not because I want to.”
“Good.” The demon continued running his hand over my head. “Good, good boy.”
The light bulb flickered, a static charge building in the air. I felt the crackle over my skin, a change that was wrong and right at the same time.
“Congratulations, Hector Briar. I name you my new Grand High. My victor. And for that, you shall be crowned.”
“Wait,” I snapped, no longer in control of my trembling body. “There’s one thing I ask of you, before I accept… I do have to accept, right?”
“Technically, although most victors are far too pleased with themselves when they get to this point, they let me in willingly. What is it you want?”
“Tomin,” I gasped. “Before we leave this place, before we face the real world again… there is something I must do first.”
Fingers of shadow worked through my skull, penetrating my thoughts. Bahmet dove in, searching for what I desired so I didn’t need to voice it.
“Commendable,” the demon glowered, talking to himself considering I’d not said a word yet. “Nothing I would do. But a spectacle nonetheless. Fine. I will allow it to happen. But first… Let. Me. In.”
The flickering bulb exploded, raining glass down over us.
The darkness swelled, rose and fell like a tidal wave that no soul, no matter how resilient, could refuse.
One moment I was knelt before Bahmet, the next he was possessing me.
Body, soul and mind.