Evocation

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

RHYS

Rhys knocked back half a sparkling water and three anxiety meds on the drive to Beacon Hill, and by the time Moira parked on the street, there was a layer of fuzzy numbness over his terror and anger. Somehow, it didn’t make him feel any calmer.

Rhys kicked open the car door as soon as the Lincoln came to a stop, then grabbed Moira’s hand and hustled her across the street. A summer storm was rolling in overhead, and the Beacon Hill house looked craggy and dilapidated in the thin gray light.

Rhys jammed the spare key into the lock and stormed into the house, Moira hot on his heels.

“DAVID,” he thundered.

Silence.

“He’s here,” Moira said. “I can feel him.”

“Split up,” Rhys said. “I’ll take the second level; you take the first.”

Rhys darted up the stairs two at a time, his skin buzzing with nerves. He threw open every door in the hallway, calling David’s name. Downstairs, Moira’s voice echoed the refrain. Rhys checked the library and Evgeni’s destroyed room, then strode towards the small door in the eastmost wing of the house. David’s childhood bedroom.

The door was locked.

“David!” Rhys shouted, pounding on the wood. “Open the goddamn door!”

There was no reply, and somehow this was worse than any snide comment or demand to be left alone. Terror seized Rhys’s heart in a vice, cutting through the haze of medication like a hot knife through butter.

“David, let me in. Please.” Rhys’s voice broke. “Please be alive.”

“Did you find him?” Moira called from somewhere else in the house. By the sound of it, she was hustling up the stairs.

“He’s barricaded himself in his room,” Rhys called, crouching down to examine the doorknob. If he stole a bobby pin from Moira, he might be able to pick the lock, just maybe. He suddenly wished that he had misbehaved more as a youth and acquired any useful breaking-and-entering skills.

“Move,” Moira said behind him.

Rhys pushed himself away from the door just in time to see Moira swing a heavy candlestick and absolutely obliterate the doorknob. It fell to the ground, dented and useless, leaving a gaping hole in the wood.

“Desperate times,” Moira said primly, and then shoved open the door.

The room was dusty and dark, a graveyard of abandoned teenage paraphernalia. For a moment, Rhys thought the room was empty. But then he caught sight of a lump curled up in the corner of the twin bed.

“David,” he breathed, rushing over.

The lump shuddered and then stuck out a hand, stopping Rhys short.

“Get out,” David rasped. As Rhys’s eyes adjusted to the dark, he could see that David’s wavy hair was stuck to his forehead with sweat, and that his eyes were rimmed with red. He looked like he was burning up with fever.

“No,” Rhys said, swatting his hand away. “You’re coming with us.”

“Just leave me alone,” David said, then shuddered as his body was wracked with chills. He coughed and dry-heaved, and Moira gave a little gasp, taking a step forward.

“Why did you run?” Rhys demanded. “We were going to take care of you. We were going to be…” he didn’t know what he meant to say next. Alright. Together. A Family. They were all shattered hopes, now.

“You’ve done everything you can do,” David said. “This is my curse. It’s mine to bear. I don’t want you here when it comes for me.”

“Bullshit.”

“Get out, Rhys.”

“No.”

Rhys bunched David’s shirtfront in his hands and hauled the other man into a sitting position. David swayed dangerously, but he managed to stay upright. His eyes were glazed over, and he looked half delirious. Rhys didn’t know exactly when the Devil would come to collect, but he got the impression they didn’t have much time.

“Help me get him into the library.” Rhys said, hooking one of David’s arms over his shoulders. “I’ve got one more ritual we can try.”

Rhys would have preferred carrying out the magical operation in his own study, close to his own supplies and books, but they did the best they could with the materials at hand. Moira laid out a ring of flickering candles on the library floor and whispered a prayer to keep the magical circle strong. She knelt in the middle with David, cradling his head in her lap while she wiped a damp washcloth across his burning brow. As she pressed her hand to his temple, Rhys stripped off his jacket and pulled up the latest ritual he had found on his phone. It wasn’t ideal, but it would do.

“He’s fading,” Moira said. “Rhys, I don’t know if he can handle another exorcism.”

“We don’t have a choice,” Rhys said, rolling the sleeves of his shirt up past the elbow. “We have to try. This rite is from the same time period and region as the original Aristarkhov contract; I think it could work. I know it could.”

“I believe in you, Rhys. But I don’t feel good about this.”

“Will you help me?” Rhys asked, raking his fingers through his bedraggled curls. Exhaustion was singing in his limbs, but he had to push through. For David. For all of them.

“Yes. Just tell me how.”

David shivered and moaned something incomprehensible, and Moira shushed him quietly. She dropped her forehead to his and muttered something soothing, and Rhys was once again struck by their easy intimacy. He had been that close to David, once, and that close to Moira, too.

God, he had wasted so much time being jealous. So much time denying himself what he really wanted. And now he was going to have to stand there and watch David slip into oblivion.

Rhys balled his hands into fists, his fingernails cutting half-moons into his skin. No. No, he could not afford to think like that. Failure was not an option. He was strong enough and smart enough to figure this out. He was High Priest, for God’s sake. If he couldn’t save David, no one could.

“If I do this right, I should be able to draw the demon out of him. But it won’t be pretty.”

“Do what you have to. I’ll handle David.”

Rhys dimmed all the lights and drew the curtains closed until the only illumination came from the flickering candles in the center of the room. David looked especially wan in the eerie light, even with Moira bending over him.

“It’s time,” Rhys said. “You’ve got to let him go, Moira.”

Moira did as she was told, stepping outside of the circle and leaving David alone inside. Rhys crossed himself, muttered a quick prayer to Saint Michael, and then looped his arm around Moira’s waist and crushed a kiss to her mouth.

“I love you,” he breathed against her lips. “Whatever happens, I love you.”

Then he took a step back and straightened his posture, adopting the bearing of the sorcerer. He planted his feet firmly on the ground, shoulder width apart, and raised one commanding hand.

“In the name of the Creator of the Universe, I command you to come out of him,” Rhys began, threading as much authority as he could through his voice.

David convulsed in the circle, curling in tight on himself, and when he looked back up at Rhys, there was very little left of him in those watery green eyes. Something else was rising to the surface, appearing to defend its claim on David’s soul. It bared David’s teeth in a horrible grimace, contorting his face.

“You stop that,” Moira snapped with surprising ferocity. She lit a candle and cupped it in her hands, whispering her own incantations into the flame. David shook violently and then hit his knees, his palms smacking against the hardwood. Moira’s magic pinned him down, making it harder for the manifesting demon to hurt David or anyone else. Between the two of them, Rhys hoped they would be able to keep David alive long enough to banish the demon.

Rhys flipped to the ritual on his phone. It was in German, which wasn’t his strongest language, but he could get through it. For David, he could do anything.

Rhys launched into the incantation, pouring every ounce of his magical strength into the ritual. He didn’t care if he was wiped for weeks after this, or if the working took years off his life. All that mattered was saving David and keeping Moira safe. He had to get this right. He only had one shot.

David screamed as the magical words poured over him, and now it really sounded like him, like a man suffering in agony. Moira trembled next to Rhys, a single tear trickling down her cheek, but she kept driving down the demon with the magic her grandmother had passed down to her. Her fingers were shaking with the effort.

Rhys reached the climax of the spell just as David, or the demon possessing him, collapsed to the floor in a shuddering heap. Close. They were close. Rhys just had to push a little harder.

“We’re losing him,” Moira cried, then skittered over and dropped to her knees at the edge of the circle, perilously close to David.

“Moira!” Rhys snapped. “Get away from him!”

“I can handle him. Keep going!”

Rhys applied himself to the spell, perspiration trickling down his temple, as Moira spoke directly to David.

“David. David, you look at me.”

Burning green eyes cut over to Moira.

“You’ve got to fight this,” she said, leaning in close. She was so near to the circle that the candlelight illuminated her face like a saint’s halo. “Ground like I taught you. Breathe.”

“I can’t,” David gasped. It was really him this time, surfacing for a moment. Fat tears fell from his eyes and splashed against the ground. “He’s too strong. I can’t.”

“I need you to. I need you to find that last bit of strength in the bottom of yourself and fight this, do you understand me? Hold the line, David.”

David tried to push himself to his knees but fell onto his back, where he covered his hands with his face and let despair take him. Sobs rattled his shoulders, rolling through him along with waves of pain that made him cry out and arch his back against the ground.

“God, just let him take me,” David managed. He sounded like a terrified little boy. Rhys’s shoulders shook with the effort of holding the spell together and the overwhelming desire to gather David into his arms, but he stayed resolute. “There’s nothing left for me. I’m nothing without him. This is all I’m good for.”

“You stop feeling sorry for yourself and you fight this son of a bitch, David Aristarkhov,” Moira said. “There are too many people who love you for you to give up now. Leda, Lorena. I love you. Rhys loves you. Do not prove your father right at the bottom of the ninth. Fight.”

David let out another scream as Rhys spoke the final words of the ritual. This was it. It had to be.

To Rhys’s horror, nothing happened. David’s fever didn’t break, his convulsions didn’t cease, clarity didn’t come back into his eyes. He just writhed on the ground, tottering on the brink of death, in excruciating pain. Pain that Rhys had put him in.

“It’s not working,” Rhys said, his heart hammering in his chest. Panic was starting to set in, blackening the edges of his vision. “Moira, the spell’s not working.”

“David, stay with me,” Moira said, voice rising in desperation. “Listen to my voice. Stay.”

Cold numbness crashed over Rhys in a wave, and he dropped his phone onto the ground. Failed. He had failed. All the power and fancy titles in the world meant nothing when it mattered most, and now he had to watch David die.

In the circle, David’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he started to shake.

“He’s having a seizure,” Moira cried. “Rhys, call a doctor, do something!”

“I–” Rhys stammered. He knew instinctively that by the time ambulance arrived, David would be dead. They were out of time and out of options.

The room tilted on its axis, and Rhys lost a precious few seconds to crushing nausea. In that moment, he would have done anything to keep David alive, he would have killed, even. But there were no options left to them.

Rhys squeezed his eyes shut. “Think, McGowan,” he breathed. “Think.”

Rhys shut out Moira’s cries and David’s gasping for breath and retreated deep into himself, flipping through possible spells and solutions at the speed of light. He turned over the details of the contract in his mind like a twelve-sided dice, looking for any possible loopholes.

The only way out, he concluded, was to do what Evgeni and his forefathers had done. Offer up one life in place of another.

Rhys had always been selfish, and he didn’t apologize for that. His whole life, he had pursued what he wanted relentlessly, whether that was money, power, or station. But right now, the only thing he truly wanted was David alive and well, and that might just require an act of selflessness.

Rhys’s eyes flew open.

He staggered towards Evgeni’s desk and snatched up the ceremonial dagger from its decorative holder. Then he ran to the circle and hauled Moira to her feet. Her lovely face was stained with tears. His heart constricted at the thought of what he was about to put her though. But it was the only way.

“You’re my whole world,” he said. “And I pray to God you can find it in your heart to forgive me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I know how to save David. But I need your help,” he rasped, gripping her by the shoulders.

“How?” she demanded. “Just tell me how.”

He told her. He pressed his forehead to hers and told her what he intended to do, outlining every step with damning clarity. When he pulled away, Moira’s eyes were shining with tears.

“You can’t,” she said, shaking her head so hard her curls bounced. “There has to be another way.”

“It’s our only shot. And there’s no more time.”

Moira pressed her lips together until the color drained from then, then she knotted her fingers into Rhys’s shirtfront and hauled him towards her. She kissed him with a desperate finality, a kiss like drowning, like dying, and then she let him go.

“You do this thing,” she said, voice dark. “And you come back to me; you hear me Rhys McGowan? You come back.”

“I swear it,” he said, heart pounding like a drum in his chest. “I swear to any God who will listen. I’ll come back to you. You remember that old story? Tam Lin?”

Moira nodded in a daze. “I remember.”

“Good. I need you to hold down David. And for God’s sake, be careful. It’s not just him you’re dealing with in there. Don’t let him go, Moira, no matter what happens.”

Moira nodded breathlessly and stepped into the circle.

David’s face snapped over to her, and Rhys watched with lead-stomached horror as all the personhood drained out of his eyes. It was replaced with a sharp, serpentine hatred. Baelshieth.

Baelshieth lunged for Moira, but Moira didn’t run away from the ferocity. Instead, she threw herself right into it, wrapping her arms around David and clinging to him for dear life. Rhys shoved David to the floor, pinning his arms at his sides. David writhed and spat, trying to scratch at them both, but Moira wrestled him down with the sheer force of her arms and will. He was strong, but she was tenacious.

“You don’t scare me,” Moira declared, even though her voice was shaking. “And you can’t have him. He’s ours. I won’t let him go.”

“Give me his hand,” Rhys said.

Moira managed to peel one of David’s hands away from his body. He was struggling in waves now, at one moment trying to throw her off, in another moment clinging to her like she was the only bulwark between him and death. It was hard to say whether she had more of David or Baelshieth in her arms.

Rhys sliced open David’s palm with the knife. A little trail of blood ran down his arm and across Moira’s fingers.

Rhys then cut his hand to match, a long incision that bled freely. Blood smeared on the knees of his chinos, on the ground between them.

The muscles in Moira’s shoulders shook, threatening to betray her at the last minute.

“Rhys,” she pleaded. “I can’t hold him.”

Rhys seized David’s hand and smashed his palm against it, mingling their blood.

“Through the binding of blood, I, Rhys McGowan, am adopted into Aristarkhov line,” he pronounced, solemn and final.

“I bear witness,” Moira said, just as he had instructed her to.

Overhead, thunder rumbled.