40. Lucy
Lucy
M idnight won’t look at me. Her skin is mottled and taut, she cracks her neck, and I am grateful she’s this way and not the opposite. If she withdrew and became forlorn, I’d fear I’d done irreparable damage.
She drags an unconscious Bastien away from the salt circle and proceeds to slap him across the face.
I wince, but he comes around as the seething mass of magic and shadows coalesces and then evaporates.
The thing that stands before us is grotesque. Neither shade nor wraith, it is a gross violation of both species.
Patches of what was Calyx are ghostly like Mortem, shimmery white and translucent.
But there are large areas of wilted skin.
Necrotic and gangrenous, withering into flaking black pustules and blisters.
One of her shoulders looks dislocated and where her mouth once was is a gaping maw with hundreds of teeth.
I glance at Bastien. He kneels before her weeping, not at her appearance, but at her eyes. They remain as they were when she was mortal. Round and blue and this evening, full of sorrow for her brother.
“I need your help,” Bastien says.
She nods slowly. “Always,” she says, her voice soft and dreamy, almost ethereal.
Then her body jerks and spasms, she hurls herself against the circle boundary, screeching.
Some of the salt sprays out from the impact.
Lex twitches, the jar open in her grip, ready to reinforce if necessary.
Bastien shuffles back and throws his arm out.
A loop of magic peels off the wall and encircles his fist, which he flings at his sister.
“Calyx, please stay with me, don’t let the wraith take over.”
He loops more and more sinewy ribbons of magic around her arms and feet. One slips around her neck like a collar and finally binds her in position. His expression is strained, years of regret etching grooves into his skin.
“Why should I help you?” she spits. This time her voice is gravelly and cold, every word rasped like she swallowed glass and sandpaper.
It makes me shiver.
He reaches towards me, his fingers wriggling. I hand him the parchment, and he shows her.
“I need to know what it says,” Bastien pleads, his bottom lip wobbles as he takes in the sight of his very dead sibling.
She laughs. It’s a shrill curdle that eats at your bones. “After what you did? You made me hurt them, Bastien. Our own flesh and blood.”
She twitches and a translucent projection appears before her. It’s wispy and sepia and plays in staccato movements.
Bastien sobs, one guttural cry from deep within his chest.
Oh gods. She’s replaying a memory. This isn’t the first time he’s resurrected her, I recall. She slaughters everyone but him. He stands among the broken bodies and bloody pools, wide-eyed and trembling as he forces her back through the Veil. Then he’s all alone.
The ribbon of magic holding her collar bursts. Bastien is frozen in a looping cycle of memories. He’s choking. We’re going to have to intervene.
I call magic from the walls and bind her again. But she’s strong, far stronger than my magic can sustain. I’m no resurrectionist, I don’t know all the proper spells to keep her trapped.
“Bastien, get a fucking grip,” Midnight says through bared teeth.
But he’s stuck in the past, and screaming at him isn’t going to help. Not this time.
I slide my hand over his shoulder, thinking perhaps he needs coaxing out, a gentler form of encouragement. “You’re not alone anymore. We’re here for you, Bastien.”
He blinks, shaking his head as if ridding himself of her hold. He touches my hand and squeezes and then focuses on what’s left of his sister.
“I am sorry I called you back then, it was a mistake. Will you forgive me?”
She throws herself forward, smashing against the circle and tumbling back. As she crashes to the ground, it seems to snap her back to more shade than wraith.
She hauls herself up. “I forgive you, but the wraith… it’s stronger than me.”
Bastien scoots forward, his hand outstretched.
I grip his shoulder, pulling back. “That’s close enough.”
“What can you tell us about these runes?”
Her head twists left and right so far it makes me queasy.
“Let me out, and I will,” she rasps.
“I can’t do that,” Bastien says.
She screams, bends double and then jerks back, bursting the bindings I made and sending me hurtling. I smack my head against the wall and slide to the floor, my vision spotty.
Midnight darts across the room, kneeling to check me, but I’m fine. Just bruised. Her expression softens, the anger fading, though it still simmers beneath her skin.
I reject her outstretched hand, not out of spite, but because I am okay, I can help myself. But her eyes darken, her teeth clench and she marches away.
“I didn’t—” I start, but what’s the point?
Maybe it’s better to let her be angry with me.
Calyx throws herself against the salt circle, over and over until a piece of her forehead cracks and necrotic ghost skin flies around the room. It splatters against the wall, making a vile squelching sound and turning my stomach.
“I love you,” Bastien says. “And I’m so sorry.”
Calyx stills. Her bright expression going cold as she collapses to her knees. Her maw hangs open; a piercing sound erupts from the void. The walls rattle and rumble, and I thank the archdemon I found an empty room with reinforced Veil structures.
Giant necrotic tears fall from her cheeks. “I can’t. It won’t let me,” she says, her voice finally returning to a soft lilt.
“Okay,” Bastien nods. “Okay, go and rest in peace.”
Her expression contorts and twists and morphs. Her shoulder cracks, her spine snapping forward and back as she fights for control.
“It’s coded,” she says breathless. “You… You need a codex to unlock the words.”
He sits up, so do Lex and Midnight. Finally, we’re getting somewhere.
“Where can I find a codex?” he breathes.
Her body jerks left and right like she’s being shot. She must be fighting the wraith inside her. Her face contorts and reforms. Serene one moment, gnarled the next.
“Not somewhere…” She screams then, her voice descending into the grating rasp once more.
“Maybe you should let her go, Bastien,” Midnight says.
“Midnight’s right, time to send her back.” Lex fists a load of salt and reinforces the circle as best she can from a distance, chucking the salt at the thinner places.
“No,” he pleads. “We’re so close. What do you mean ‘not somewhere?’” He asks, inching nearer and nearer the salt circle.
Lex glances at me and then to Midnight. He’s losing his ability to let go. We need to act.
“Someone,” she shrieks, every trace of softness gone.
“Bastien,” I plead. “Now.”
“I can’t,” he sobs.
His knees are dangerously close to the edge of the circle. All three of us use our bodies to push him back away from his sister.
“Please,” he whines. “She’s all I have left.”
“You have us,” Midnight says and kisses him on the forehead, finally understanding that he needs comfort and not encouragement.
The wail he lets out reaches straight into my heart. This is why we don’t bring relatives back. It’s too hard to say goodbye all over again.
“I love you,” he says, over and over. “I’m sorry.”
“S… S… Someone,” she manages.
“The codex is a person?” I blurt.
She nods.
Bastien and Calyx hold each other’s gaze for a moment longer. Calyx is bent forward, her shoulders heavy, exhausted. Bastien draws his hands together and splits them. The magic holding her here severs and she dissolves, her hand outstretched, seeking one more touch.
He kneels, blood pouring from his nose, his hand still outstretched.
It’s no longer pain in his expression but agony.
It’s so acute I’m not sure if he will ever recover, and it’s my fault.
They did this for me, and all I’m doing is causing them pain.
Bastien slouches, Midnight pulls him to the ground.
He curls up into the foetal position. Midnight spoons him from behind, Lex snuggles into his chest, and they let him cry.
People never die when we want. But perhaps that is the only way it should be? If we knew when our end would come, like Midnight, would we eat ourselves up contemplating how to live meaningfully? Or would we bury our head and deny the truth.
We’re all messed up, whether we fight fate or face it.