Chapter 28
We’re in the garden — Alaric, Raven and I — lying around an ancient oak with the April sun beating down on us and other students walking past. There are papers strewn on the grass around us, but we’re all struggling to keep our focus on the task at hand, albeit for different reasons. Alaric is too focused on Raven, Raven is too focused on ravens skipping around, and I…
I”m torn between two things… I”m worrying about the whole end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it, especially when I think about how little progress I”ve made since my first real training session with Bane. Sure, I can shoot whips out of my fingers, but I”m not in control of them in the slightest. Electricity is proving to be a highly fickle thing. I know I need to be able to rein it in to actually use it, but no matter what I try to achieve it, it doesn”t work.
I”m also failing to stop thinking about a certain someone. Today, it’s all got to do with the fact that, just last night, I left the light on after midnight and earned myself another one of those warning texts. But it also made me realize it’s been months since he and I started having sex. Which is a lot longer than I thought this would go on, especially since, well, my appetite for it is not showing any signs of waning.
To make it even worse… I look up from the papers to throw a sneaky glance at Alaric. He’s keeping his mouth shut for once, but I know he knows, and the fact he hasn’t said anything… It only goes to show he doesn’t approve.
It snaps me out of it, when he lets out a dragged-out sigh, his eyes fixed on the paper in front of him.
Now I’m back to worrying about the task at hand. Now that I”ve quit my part-time job in the Library, I definitely have more time and energy to devote to stuff like the papers in front of me — all containing information on places that might turn out to be spots where the other three pieces of Baldur are buried, but as my eyes sweep over them all, I once again find myself feeling desolate.
It’s like whatever I do, I can’t get any answers, just more questions, like whose voice it was in my head back in Harald.
The thought that it could be Baldur himself sends shivers down my spine. There’s this need inside me to tell someone about it, but it’s not like we’re not already trying to stop him from coming back. Why add to everyone’s troubles? This is a weight that I need to carry myself.
“Hopeless, isn’t it?” I say as I look at my friends, making them both sit up. “And if only I’d made progress on deciphering the ritual, maybe it would be less hopeless, but…”
“It doesn’t matter,” Alaric replies. “If you want to keep going, we’ll keep going.”
“I don’t know if there’s any point. These are just places people say are cursed.”
“It is a start nevertheless,” Raven replies.
“Yeah,” I mumble, not really convinced. “But it’s been almost three months since we went to that place and we’ve nothing more to go on than we did back then.”
“Maybe it is time to rethink the way we are approaching the task,” she tells me.
It’s far from a novel idea, what she tells me, but it does something. I sit up. “Alright,” I start, determination in my voice, “I think I know what I want to do.”
“What?” Alaric asks, narrowing his eyes.
“Let’s just say I have these…” I pause, trying to find the right words. “Feelings about some of these places.”
“Why didn’t you say so?” Raven asks.
I shrug. “I mean, I have feelings about stuff all the time,” I say with mockery in my voice. “I don’t think you want me to start sharing them at all times.”
Alaric quirks an eyebrow at me. “Yeah, Lilith forbid.”
I roll my eyes at him, but I’m smiling.
“Which places do you have feelings about and what kind of feelings are they?” Raven asks.
Raising my eyebrows, I take a deep breath and look at the papers again. “This one,” I say as I point at the copy of a photo of this vampiric shrine in the middle of a field somewhere in the south of France. “It makes me feel… warm for some reason.”
“Yeah, it’s probably not that one then,” Alaric comments.
“Then there’s this one,” I keep going, catching momentum as I look around for it and point at an image of this city intersection in the north of Germany. “It makes me feel sad.”
“Good,” Raven says, nudging me to go on.
“This one,” I say as I point at an image of some village in the English countryside. “It makes me feel… angry.”
There’s a second of silence before Alaric replies, “We have two very good candidates. The German city and the English village.”
I blow out a frustrated breath. I guess we could go visit both of them.
“Where do you want to go?” Raven asks. “Which place are you most drawn to?”
“The village,” I reply, noticing it’s without a second of hesitation that I do.
That makes me feel confident about it when Alaric says, “Then that’s where we’re going.”
For a moment, I just look at the two of them, feeling so grateful I have them in my life. Then I nod with determination and I take my phone out. “I’m texting Bane.”
“We need more Pull passes,” I write. “Can you get them for today?”
I move to put my phone away when I see him start to type. “At your service, oh Chosen One. Where are we going?”
“Kinwick, England.”
“And why are we going there?”
This makes me hesitate. The man seems to have a strong opinion on everything I ever choose to do, and I have a feeling this particular choice he’ll be against. Not wanting to get into a discussion, I just type, “I’ll explain later. Thanks for taking care of this.”
I put my phone down, knowing he won’t be sending anything else. It’s always my texts that are the last in our chats. I look up at Raven and Alaric, who are both waiting. I throw them an encouraging smile. “We’re going, today.”
Raven nods. Alaric takes a deep breath, as if in preparation, but then he nods as well. He grins, saying, “Well, if we’ll be putting our lives in danger again, I at least want to do it on a full stomach.”
It makes me smile. I nod and we get up, heading straight for the cafeteria.
***
We’re still in line in the cafeteria when this feeling makes me crane my neck and I spot Bane sauntering through the archway.
It’s not the three of us he walks up to. It’s a man sitting at a table by the window, alone. I squint, recognizing Professor O’Connor, the one in charge of issuing Pull passes. I’ve never liked the guy, simply because he’s one of those that are only here for the prestige.
As soon as he spots Bane walking over to him, he smiles and motions for him to take a seat. I watch the two of them exchange pleasantries, it being a rare opportunity for me to observe Bane without being observed myself.
I feel Alaric nudge me to keep moving in line. I’m just about to tear my eyes away from Bane, when I see him slide something across the table to O’Connor.
My eyebrows pulling down, I watch Bane get up and turn to walk away.
Did he just…
I put my tray back and find myself rushing to catch up with him. It’s just as he’s about to walk out of the cafeteria that he stops and turns around, as if he’s sensed me burning a hole in his nape.
It’s with his usual smirk that he watches me slow to a stop in front of him.
“Did you just pay O’Connor for the passes?” I demand with a frown.
The smirk slides off his face. He shrugs. “England and Germany aren’t besties at the moment. The usual, legal routes aren’t an option.”
“I think I told you I don’t want your dirty money involved.”
For a second, he just looks at me, his jaw clenching. Then he blows out a soft scoff, smooths his features out and comes to whisper in my ear, this defiant tension in his voice, “Pity, because right now, ‘my dirty money’ is the only way for you to get to England without wearing out that high horse of yours.”
And he steps back, folding his arms, waiting.
I practically have to squeeze the word out. “Fine.”
“No need to go overboard thanking me,” he says coldly.
I open my mouth to tell him where to shove it, but then his phone pings and he takes it out to check the message.
“Oh look,” he says as he locks eyes with me again, his voice saccharine, “we’re good to go.”
“You’re not coming,” I reply through gritted teeth.
“Try and stop me,” he grits out, too.
***
I stumble out of the Pull, landing near a crossing of two village paths, the wind whipping my face as it howls across the otherwise silent English countryside sprawling around me.
Bane is already standing in front of me with his back turned, surveying our surroundings. I throw a look over my shoulder to check that Alaric and Raven are there, but as soon as I do, I turn my eyes back ahead. The beating of the wind making it jerk left right ever so slightly, there’s an old wooden signpost at the center of the crossing in front of us. The arrow with the name Kinwick painted in peeling white is pointing ahead, to the crumbling little village faintly outlined against the gloomy sky. It’s all stone houses with thatched roofs, moss-covered drywalls and drops of freshly fallen rain glistening from everything.
It’s when I feel Alaric and Raven come to stand around me that I take a deep breath, put on a smile and say, “Let’s go, shall we?”
Bane throws a look over his shoulder and locks eyes with me. When I told him why I wanted to come here, he wasn’t pleased, and he hasn’t stopped showing it. But he doesn’t say anything. He just breaks eye contact and starts walking, motioning for us to follow.
I’ve no idea what to expect, but it’s only when we come closer to the village, and I spot a man in his sixties walk out of his house and stop midstep when he sees us, that I realize that the village had kind of seemed deserted to me.
The man squints and this feeling of dread suddenly overtakes me, so I’m glad when I realize that Bane is planning on just walking past the man’s house.
I keep walking behind him, wondering what the hell I’m doing, going out of my way to make it easier for trouble to find me.
Before we even pass him by, the man’s squint turns into a warm smile and a friendly wave. “Hi, how’re ya?” he says in a quite unintelligible English accent.
I slow down, returning the smile and then coming to a stop.
“Hello there,” I say with warmth in my voice, feeling the eyes of all my companions on me as I sense them stop. “We’re good, how are you?”
The man smiles again. “You lost, luv?” He glances around. “We don’t get many visitors around here, that’s for sure and certain.”
I take a step closer, smiling. “Actually,” I start, an idea brewing in my head, “we’re journalists.” I rush to add, “Don’t worry, not the nasty kind.”
I catch a frown from Bane’s direction, but I don’t care. I just keep smiling, trying to make myself seem as harmless as possible.
The man scratches his head, smiling a little self-consciously. “Heh, well, what’re you writing about?”
“It’s kind of silly, actually,” I say with a laugh. “We’ve been tasked to write a piece on cursed villages.”
The man’s smile doesn’t disappear entirely, but it does turn a bit more cordial. “Ah, I see. Well, good luck with that.”
And he moves to walk away.
“Would you know anything about it?” I insist, gently, as I walk up to the fence surrounding his house. He stops. “Why people call this particular village cursed?”
He doesn’t turn around, he just throws me an apologetic look over his shoulder. “Sorry, never been one for wives tales.”
“That’s alright,” I rush to say, wanting for this not to be unpleasant for him. “Have a good day.”
The man waves and goes back inside.
I grit my teeth before I turn around to face the rest of the team.
“Now what?” Bane asks, and by the way he’s looking at me, I know he’s only getting firmer in his opinion on this — that I’m getting myself in trouble and that I’m doing it over nothing.
Then again, I’m still under the impression of my opinions on his behavior, so to hell with him.
Besides, Alaric and Raven are here to help me, not have me waste their time.
And there’s this heaviness in the air that’s making it hard for me to breathe, so without wanting to, I just stay silent.
“Why don’t you take the lead, Anna?” Raven asks with gentleness in her voice. ”We can walk around and see if there’s anything that catches your eye.”
“Yeah,” I say with a nod, desperately grabbing onto the idea. “That’s exactly what we’ll do. Thanks.”
I start walking, the three of them trailing me in silence as we start passing house after house, only some still in use, and by the looks of it, it’s mostly old people.
The goddamn air, I think as I keep my eyes peeled on anything that might stand out. Why is the air in this place so thin and heavy at the same goddamn time?
It makes me frown and slow down, when it becomes even thinner. I look up only for my vision to immediately blur, this vague image of a barren spot of land flashing before my eyes before they settle on what’s in front of me, an old stone bridge connecting one part of the village with another.
I come to a stop, gulping as Bane comes to frown at me with a question in his eyes.
“There,” I say in a low voice, lifting my hand to point at the bridge. “That’s where we need to go.”
“You alright?” he asks.
“I’m fine.”
As soon as we step foot on the bridge, the stream almost soundlessly running below, I feel my emotions get heightened to a point that’s completely unbearable.
It’s even more amplified by the feeling of something awful nestling inside my chest, the filth of the place I’m standing on seeping into my very bones.
Then there’s the flicker followed by the shadows creeping across my vision, just like there was back in Norway. My breathing starts to get shallow even before I hear the already familiar deep, male drawl boom inside my head, “So romantic, that you’d come looking for me again. But don’t worry…” It stops, making me hold my breath as my entire body starts to tremble. When it sounds again, it’s a self-satisfied whisper. “If you don’t find me, my darling, I’ll find you.”
The voice and the words make my body swell with so much rage, it renders me blind for a moment. I feel I’m about to break somehow, and it’s going to be bad, unless I find a way to get in control, fast.
“You don”t look fine to me, Novak,” I hear Bane say just as whips of electricity start shooting out of my entire body.
Whips I can”t control. Whips that could potentially hurt my friends.
So I don’t answer. I force myself to focus and remember the stuff that helps me in these kinds of situations. What was that damn thing about control?
Gaining, losing... You can’t gain it unless you first lose it.
“Anna?” Raven calls out, but I can’t seem to force myself to pay any attention to the world around me.
I start flexing my fingers, feeling the electricity coursing through my veins and trying to make it run the course I want it to run.
It only makes it grow more out of control.
I hear Bane’s dead serious voice boom from behind me. “Three seconds to stop this, Novak, that’s how long you have before I make you.”
He”s right, my wolf”s voice booms. You”re going to get yourself hurt.
Neither of them manage to stop me from letting it flood me.
You can’t gain control unless you first lose it.
Taking a big, desperate breath of air, I first fix my eyes on a tree on the other side of the bridge, then I close them shut and let the current swell as much as it wants to.
Blinding, the pain is blinding, and it feels as if I”m going to implode.
Then it passes and I open my eyes and I see whips of electricity hitting just the spot I wanted them to hit, cutting a couple of branches off.
There’s a moment of silence before I breathe a sigh of relief, leaning forward with a hand on my stomach, but as soon as I do, I sense Bane march up to me, grabbing me by the upper arm as he commands, “Yeah, we’re leaving.”
“No,” I say with a shake of my head.
“There’s nothing here,” he grits out as he gets in my face. “And you seem too eager to get hurt.”
I don’t know if it’s a smart decision, since we’re already here and everything, but I don’t trust myself in this place, so I just say, “Fine, have it your way.”
Alaric and Raven both throw me sympathetic glances when I turn around and start walking back.
Yeah, it’s better this way. I can’t fucking stand being in this place.
But then there’s this low, rumbling sound that makes me slow to a stop, my blood curdling in my veins.
Slowly, I turn around, seeing the others looking in the same direction. There’s nothing perceptibly different about the solitary bridge in front of us.
It’s more of a feeling of something crawling, fast and from all directions, straight towards us. It’s invisible and powerful like the breath of death itself.
The next thing I know, the bridge is splitting in half and there’s this thing lifting from the depths of the chasm.
I frown. A bone?
My eyes round. A rib.
My mind buzzing and drowning out all the sounds, I see Bane shift and come to land between us and the bridge. I can tell that Alaric is shouting, “What the hell is going on?” But that pain is setting my body on fire again and I see everything around me explode in light, before it turns pitch black.
Then there it is, hitting me like a wave.
The knock.
***
I’m standing in the doorway, looking into a dark cottage. There are smells of spices hanging low in the air, and there’s something nudging me forward, a need to make things right. I tear myself away from the doorway and step deeper into the darkness. There’s a woman there, old, sitting on a stool with her back turned to me.
And she’s not turning around, she just keeps sitting there in silence, but somehow, the more I look at her, the more I know that everything will be alright. She’s the one I’ve come to ask for help, to wash the blood off my hands.
But when I try to get closer, my body stays where it is. I try to will it into moving, dread seeping into my bones when I fail. The image in front of me flickers as if it”s about to turn into something else, making my breath catch in anticipation. Then I hear the laugh and everything turns pitch black.
***
I’m in pain, this all-pervasive, dull but foul pain. Half-unconscious, Bane carries me out of the Pull Chamber on castle grounds. He doesn’t stop, he keeps marching in the direction of the Elevator. I struggle to open my eyes.
“What do you think is wrong with her?” I hear Alaric ask with concern in his voice.
“Just keep moving,” Bane growls at him.
I don’t see any of them, I’m huddled in his arms, but I can hear the sound of a cane against stone.
Finally, I open my eyes and I see Bane stopping to let Serra take a look at me. “She’ll be fine,” she says with a frown.
We keep walking, Serra’s footsteps joining the other three pairs.
“What did you do?” Serra comes to whisper in my ear in a voice that betrays this desperation I’ve never heard in it before. I sense Bane tense up, but he doesn’t say anything.
She pauses before she adds, in an even lower voice, “There are over ten people dead in that village, Anna.”
Pain and regret sear through me.
“Alright, that’s enough,” I hear Bane mercilessly cut her off. “What’s done is done.”
They all keep walking to the Elevator, but I can no longer hear or see anything, that’s how much my tears blind me and the sound of my own heartbeat drowns out all the other sounds.