38. Moment in the Dark
38
MOMENT IN THE DARK
SAYAH
D usk is upon us, and the stars are starting to freckle the sky. The sun is almost set, giving that dull yellow light a faint, dreary feeling, keeping everything soft and colorful.
Inside, much of the group is doing our part to clean up the mess that was made. Dom and I are sweeping up the glass, Bash and Talora are putting the furniture back into place, Everett and Ollie are wrapping Joe up in a sheet, and Allison is cleaning up the blood. Adaline, Scarlet, and Hattie have returned to the spell room to commence trying to break the curse.
“What are we going to do with the—with Joe?” asks Ollie, helping Everett to roll him over onto a sheet.
“We need to get rid of it,” Everett says, and Jasantha shoots him a look that could probably kill him had she turned her siren powers on. She’s still kneeling on the floor next to Joe.
“We’ll take him to the lake and sink him,” she says solemnly, tears like sparkles on her cheeks. “I can visit him sometimes that way.” She makes a low keening sound, as though she’s expressing her grief through sound. My heart breaks for her.
It’s easy to see how much she loved him by how hard she’s grieving.
“I’ll take you,” Everett says, his stoic features softening toward her. “I need to get out of this place anyway. At least for a minute.”
Adaline emerges from the hallway, eyes sharp like tacks and concentration haloed around her as though she’s a powerful scientist who has been locked away, discovering the next great equation.
“We need wolfsbane,” she announces, tapping her fingernail on the marble island to get the family’s attention. “I don’t have any left. Didn’t know I was going to need it. So, I need someone to go out and get some.”
“Where do we find it?” Dom asks as he finishes sweeping the glass into my dustpan.
“There should be some at the local nursery,” she says, looking down at me.
“I’ll go,” Dom offers, setting the broom handle against a barstool.
“I’ll go with you,” Ollie adds, finishing with rolling Joe up tight.
Everett heaves Joe up and throws him over his shoulder. “Let’s go, J,” he directs at Jasantha.
Reluctantly, she pulls herself off the floor and follows her dad out the back door.
Dom takes the dustpan from me as I stand. “I’ll be right back, okay?” he tells me with the question.
“Okay,” I say, unable to hide the despair in my voice. “I’ll work on the sun talismans.”
He kisses me on the lips. “I’ll be right back.”
“Ollie, do you have a piece of jewelry you’d like me to spell?” I ask as he walks by.
He appraises me with a look as calm as the sky at sunset and unclasps his necklace, handing it to me. “Thank you,” he says, grasping my hand in his. There’s a kindness in his voice and a softness in his eyes that isn’t like the others. “He’s gonna be okay,” he says gently for only me to hear.
I nod again and give him a smile before embarking on my journey to gather more jewelry.
They leave out the front door, and Talora and Allison continue cleaning up the blood around the house. Bash is on the floor, picking up the broken bits of glass.
Doing magick and helping the vampires with sun talismans will keep my mind at ease, even if I don’t feel like helping some of them. More so the ones that seem to want me dead—like Hattie.
“Hattie, Scarlet?” I ask as she and Scarlet pass to follow their mom to the spell room.
Hattie gawks at me as though I’m her next meal. “What?”
“May I have a piece of your jewelry to spell so you can go in the sun?”
Scarlet looks dubiously over at Hattie and then unclips an earring from her ear, handing it to me.
Hattie looks me up and down, taking that calculated measure of me once again, and lifts her be-ringed, spindly fingers, slipping one off. Plopping it into my hand, she walks off with her sister in silence, not a thank you or a query.
There isn’t any desire within me that makes me want to do this for them, but I feel like I have to do something; otherwise, I’m going to go crazy with my thoughts. I feel the dread growing inside me with every passing moment and being here is not doing anything for my soul.
But being outside with the lake and the trees and the wind brings me ease and comforts me. It’s only here and now that I feel like someone, or something, is watching over me. Mama’s memory bites at me again, and I try to wrap my mind around the fact that my mom is gone and never coming back to help me.
What would she have said about all this?
I can only imagine my mother’s reaction to me telling her all about how there are vampires in the world, and sirens, demons, grimspawns, formweavers, and warlocks, and how everything that scared us as little kids is true.
Not realizing it, I reach the water’s edge and stop, getting my sneakers right up to taste the water that ebbs and flows to my feet.
I collapse to the ground, not worrying about getting my jeans dirty; I want to feel Mother Earth’s soil beneath me.
Putting my hands to the ground, one empty, the other holding the jewelry I collected, I will use my strength to get through this to come to me from that soil. Imploring the dirt to come to my aid and make me strong, to get Dom’s curse broken, to get through this weekend alive.
There’s a child that needs me as much as I need my mama right now.
How do I know when he’s right behind me every time?
It’s an extraordinary shift of energy, almost like a buzzing. I feel the danger in the air like one would feel a frost coming.
A shudder skitters down my spine.
“What do you want, Bash?” I ask, not sparing him a glance.
“I wanted to see if you’re all right.”
“You don’t care about me. Cut the shit.”
“And you think I’m a monster, just like the rest.”
“Isn’t that what you want to be, Bash? A monster?”
“I’m a vampire; it’s what I am supposed to be!”
“No!” I shout and jump up. “Something inside all of you pushes back that dark as much as the light tries to pull.”
“You say this when you have only spent a moment in the dark! I have spent centuries!” he spits back.
His words cut me deep.
“Although my dark is not as long as yours, it’s just as black! I have known darkness. Don’t come at me with that and say I haven’t; you don’t even know me.” I make sure that the tone of my voice is edged with angry sorrow and not just anger.
“I know you more than you think I do,” he responds, drawing closer to me again.
“You are so full of cryptic bull shit, I just watched you kill someone. You don’t want Dom to know that I’ve been in your dreams; I’m about tired of all these crazy, murder-y, psychotic games!”
I walk away, and he teleports right in front of me.
“I couldn’t tell you before because Talora always watches me.” His eyes tighten on mine. “I’ve had Scarlet sedate her for me. So I can tell you what I have to say.”
“Why? What will that accomplish? I’m in a house full of murderous vampires, as a weak witch who is trying to save my boyfriend, and there is a warlock demon lady who wants me dead! How does what you have to say help me at all?”
“I don’t know! But it might; just listen!” He grabs my hand, and that searing feeling sends a shock wave through me. I pull back my arm.
A part of me wants to hear what he has to say, and a part doesn’t. I don’t know how much of what I feel for him is of my own pound or his allure. Bash is a monster, and I should fear him. But in all of those dreams, there’s a look of absolute agony every time he burns and kills me. There are also dreams where he decides to burn with me.
“I didn’t kill Sadie,” he absolves, and instantly, he has my full attention.
“What does that have to do with me?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Dom met her first. She was a witch. But I didn’t tell him I’d been dreaming of her for years. The same dreams that I’ve been having of you. And she’d been dreaming of me, too. When he brought her home, I was immediately drawn to her, and she to me. When he discovered that Sadie and I had dreams of each other, we got into one of those fights you witnessed. But, I’d turned and didn’t know my own strength yet. I killed him, igniting his vampire curse. I’m the one who turned my brother into a vampire.”
The features of his face crack as though this was still fresh like it’d happened last week instead of hundreds of years ago.
“I was overwhelmed with the guilt I felt at this,” he continues stonily. “I was going to take my own life. Everything about you becomes heightened when you become a vampire. So, all the guilt I was feeling was tenfold. You learn to control it over time, but I was a new vampire. I decided to leave and sit in my darkness. Sadie was still drawn to me and couldn’t let me be alone; she didn’t want me to die. So, she fled with me, knowing it would break my brother’s heart.”
Bash walks along the banks of the lake, and I’m entranced by his tale, picturing what he’s telling me in my mind as though it was happening right before me. I follow him quietly, willing him to continue.
“Dom thinks that I wanted to turn Sadie into a vampire because that’s what I told Ollie one night, when they thought I was subdued by Jasantha’s siren power. But because of my dreams, I knew if I bit her, she’d burn. I refused her time and time again. She was so mad; she didn’t care about the burning, she wanted to be with me forever and begged me to turn her. I still refused, so she went out and found another vampire to turn her.
“Because she was born only a witch, her body couldn’t handle the vampire curse. To be a hybrid—or tribrid, in my case—you have to be born or die as one. When she returned to me, she was going mad with the mixture of the two bloods, talking of the goddess beckoning her to a forest and telling her she was supposed to be the phoenix, but she messed up by trying to become a vampire. Laying with madness in her mind, drenched in sweat and burning up from the inside, she told me how someone named Freya told her the balance of nature had been thrown off kilter, and she couldn’t fulfill the duties she’d been conditioned for. She made me swear I would never tell a soul of this because Freya had told her that the phoenix would rise again one day and it had to restore the balance. She begged me to kill her, saying that since she had failed Freya, the grimspawns had already come for her and marked her, and she didn’t want to live like that. She told me she would return to me one day in another life, and that I would know by the dreams.”
He pauses here and looks at me.
The vast ocean that opens with this information storms inside me, and I find myself on the precipice of knowledge, trying to wrap my mind around all that Bash is telling me.
“She killed herself, Sayah,” he goes on softly. “And if she didn’t, she would have gone mad with rage anyway. She drove a silver stake through her own heart and burned. I told them all that I had killed her and the man she had run away with to keep my promise to Sadie. But after she died, that’s when I gave myself over to the dark. ”
I realize we have stopped walking, and my mouth is agape, but my hand is covering it.
Questions lurch and sway like a ship in the storm of my mind; I reach for them as though grasping for light in the dark but none would come to fruition with my voice.
So, I’m supposed to be the phoenix?
What does that mean?
What is the phoenix supposed to do?
Am I Sadie reincarnated?
And then that would mean I was with Dom in another life, and Bash, too?
And Bash isn’t the monster they all think he is, yet he still makes them believe that.
“I know so many questions are running through your mind, and I don’t have the answers for you. I wanted you to know that I have lived this before and don’t want you to suffer the same fate as Sadie. For whatever reason, you were put in our lives to fulfill a destiny bestowed upon you by the goddess. I want you to continue following that path, whatever that may be.”
“But what is that path?”
“Sadie said to restore balance. I can only think that so many lines have blurred with us supernatural beings. The hybrids, the tribrids. The grimspawns and the warlocks. I think you may be conditioned to be the undoing of us all.”
These last words hang before me and latch onto something deep within me.
The undoing of them all?
I don’t want that.
With Dom, even though it has gone awry, I had found a way for him to kill people who deserve to be killed, people who hurt other people and children, and to keep him alive and around for as long as I can.
The luminous part of me found a way to balance his dark with my light, which I found can be done.
With Bash, his darkness pulls at me, and that’s another thing that makes no sense with this phoenix thing. If I’m supposed to be the undoing of them all, why do I feel that I could love him wildly and heedlessly, all without fear of it consuming me?
“Just last night, you told me you needed my light and will have me. If you knew that the same thing would happen to me that happened to Sadie, why would you say that? Why would you want that for me? And then to say that I am to be the undoing of you all, none of what you’re saying makes any sense.”
“Because part of me belongs to you, Sayah, and I don’t know how dominant that part of me is.” He steps toward me, moving his arm up as though he wants to grab my hand but lets it drop to his side. “There are times, in my dreams, your dreams, that when I am near you, I can’t think of anything else in the world other than being next to you forever. When I wake up from them, I need you, and when I was so close to you for the first time last night, I couldn’t contain it. It was the same overwhelming feeling I had with Sadie. Even though I knew that we would be the undoing of one another, I couldn’t resist. That is the selfish part of me. Now, reliving what happened with Sadie, I’ve had time to think. That with so much evil in this world, you are meant to undo it all, if not at least some of it. I have to resist you too, so I don’t kill you, so you may carry out your destiny.”
Contemplating what he’s saying to me, there’s a part of Bash that wants my death on his lips. But why? The warlock that lives in Dom’s mind lives in his, too, and she wants me dead. Now, she has two vampires to carry out her wish.
“Why can’t you be subdued by Jasantha?” This is my next question, and I ask this above the others for reasons unbeknownst to me.
“Because I made her,” he says simply, his black brows steeply arched. “And so, therefore, she is sired to me. She can’t trance me. But they don’t know that.”
“But if she is a hybrid that was not born of the two bloods, how can she be, and Sadie couldn’t?”
“Because Sadie was a witch. She was born with the blood of the phoenix in her, the light. It couldn’t mix with the dark. And Jasantha was born with dark blood, as sirens are of the dark. So, the vampire curse could live at home in her. When she died with my blood in her, she died with the hybrid trait. Like I said, you have to be born of one or die as one.”
“But if Sadie couldn’t handle the two types of blood mixing, how could your mom? She was a witch, too; how could she be a vampire after being a witch?”
“Part of me always wondered that, too, but the dreams of me biting and Sadie burning stopped me from trying. I assumed that because Sadie was supposed to be the phoenix, whatever blood that is, my mom doesn’t have that blood within her, and that’s why she was able to be a vampire and a witch. That, and she was in cahoots with demons. Her witch blood must have been dampened with darkness, making it easier for the vampire curse to lay at home at ease in her.”
“And we can’t tell Dom any of this?”
“You can’t tell anyone any of this. You have to fulfill your duty now.”
“But what if that means killing you?”
“I have this on me now.” He pulls down his collar, and the mark there is that one shade darker than it had been. Luckily, it hasn’t gotten darker. “I don’t want this. And if we can’t break it, I don’t want to live with what that means. I’m okay with dying by your hand. I’ve lived for over two hundred years. Maybe next time I come back, you and I can be together as normal humans and have that human life everyone dreams about.” He enchants a mischievous smile that somewhat quells my worry for a short time, and then the despair and hushed agony return to us again.
The quiet depths of my soul are churning, a violent tidal wave surging up and crashing into the rocky cliffs of me; my only hope is that the three women inside will find a way to break this curse and put all of this behind us.
But something tells me that not even that mattered.
Even if they do, whatever this phoenix blessing is, I’m sure I’ll find out what I’m meant to do.
“Why do you want them to believe you’re a monster when you aren’t one? ”
“Oh, Sayah.”
The way my name dances on his lips stutters me.
“I’m the worst fucking kind of monster there is. I’m no fucking good, whatever you wish to believe.” He cocks his head to the side as though hearing something that I don’t hear. “Shhh, Dom is back. Talk about something else.”
“What am I supposed to be talking about with you?” I whisper.
“Here, take this,” he says, unclasping the chain around his neck and handing it to me. “Please make one for me too.”
“Hey,” Dom says as he approaches.
Bash clears his throat. “I was seeing if she was all right. If she needed any help with her light . . . sun-beckony thing.” He turns on his heels and walks back toward the house.
As Bash flashes away, Dom stares at me, maybe even into me, and I can see that he’s worried about the same thing happening again with me that happened with Sadie and Bash.
“Did I interrupt something?” His tone is drenched in suspicion.
I’m careful in choosing my words. I don’t want to ignite that curse and have him wanting to kill me. “I was crying. I came out here to do the sun talisman on these”—I hold out my hands and show him the jewelry—“and I collapsed at the lake’s edge. He must have seen me and made sure I was okay.”
His nebulous gaze is unreadable. “I find it hard to believe that Bash cared enough about anyone more than himself.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” I say, my voice gaining more defensiveness. “Did you get the wolfsbane?”
“Yes,” he replies, still looking at me hesitantly.
“Hey,” I coo, stepping closer and wrapping my arms around him. “Don’t be worried, okay? There’s nothing to be worried about. I needed a friend, and he was there. That’s all it was.”
“You don’t know him like I do, Say. Be careful, okay?”
“I will.”
Kissing me softly, I feel him trying to get into my mind again, like a faint tickling inside my head. “I’m gonna see how they’re coming along with the spell. They should be getting close now with the wolfsbane.”
“Okay. I’ll finish up with these.”
He nods and leaves.
While I work on spelling the jewelry in my possession, I let my mind wander to everything Bash told me.
Why doesn’t he want Dom to know?
It’s almost as though Bash wants this all to end, like he’s letting me become what I am to become to save the world or something.
But how am I supposed to know what I’m supposed to do now?
As I spell the objects that rest in my hand, conversing with the moon and deepening my bond with it, I think of my mom again and inwardly beg her to help me, to come save me and let me know what I’m supposed to be doing.
The tears that occlude my eyes make the lake look foggy and warped. I remember being here as a kid with my family, how much Mama had loved it here, and used to paint the fog dancing on the lake in the morning.
A light breeze skitters across the water and brushes over me, and for a fleeting moment, it feels like my mother’s hand brushes me softly, telling me that it will be okay.
The sound of the large crash coming from the house draws me from my moment of peace.
My heart drops into my stomach as I run up the hill, knowing it’s Dom and Bash fighting again.
As soon as I enter, I quickly stow the newly spelled jewelry on an end table and survey the situation.
There’s a collision of forces when Dom rams Bash into a door, the impact of the murderous rush causing the drywall to crack, the filigreed within the wainscoting rattling.
“I told you nothing happened!” Bash manages to get out through forced air; Dom is pressing all his weight into his chest.
Using his elbow to thwart Dom’s attempts to break his sternum, Dom stumbles back into Ollie .
“You guys need to chill!” yells Ollie, trying to hold Dom back from running at Bash again.
“That’s the same thing you said right before you killed me and then ran off with Sadie,” Dom says before he rushes at his brother again.
“Dom!” I shout, hoping to stop them before the curse becomes activated again.
The sound of my voice hits him, and when it does, the mixture of adrenaline and my voice causes him to turn to me and rush at me.
There’s no time to run. I have no idea what’s happening.
All I know is that the look in his eyes is murderous. He doesn’t recognize me.
His green eyes have gone black, his skin is translucent, and the murder in his gait only tells the story of my death. This is all I see before he reaches me in the flash of light.
Then there’s a piercing in my neck, kind of like all those times I had been poked and prodded when going through chemo.
The feeling of being depleted of blood is also fresh in my memory. The light-headedness, the bright lights, being able to see my heartbeat in my eyes.
The last thing I see before I lose consciousness is Bash’s blue eyes over Dom’s shoulder, pulling him off me.