Chapter 20
Iwatch as Issac bustles around the circle, and I don’t bother to try and interact with him. After all, what’s the point? There’s nothing I can say that he’d actually hear. You can’t argue with stupidity. Or, in this instance, a raging case of ego and lust for power.
The fool is going to get himself and everyone else killed—not that I’ll probably live long enough to see it if Issac has his way.
The stupid thing is, if he’d been a little saner, a little more pleasant…
a little less…well…evil, I’d have given him the damn bookshop.
I don’t want the inheritance, I never have, not even the money.
Now I don’t have a choice, I’m probably the only Crawshanks descendant left.
As much as it pains me to agree with anything Issac says, he’s right about one thing.
This place has too much power, too many secrets, and is, frankly, just too fucking dangerous to let fall into the wrong hands.
It’s my responsibility whether I like it or not, and for the first time since my dads told me about Vivienne and the circumstances of my adoption, I’ve actually begun to understand what it was like for her.
Fuck.
I reach for my magic again, frustrated when it gives a muted pulse but refuses to unfurl. Fucking witch rope, fucking Issac, fucking whole Crawshanks family and their stupid fucking bad decisions leading to a fucking legacy we’re still paying for generations later.
I am not dying like this. If my magic won’t work, I’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way.
Glancing up at the rope, I can see where the flare of my magic caused by my flash of temper singed it.
Several of the tiny white flowers were burned away and the threads have begun to fray.
It’s obviously still strong enough to bind my power, but maybe sheer brute strength would make the rope snap.
There’s just two problems with that. One, I don’t have brute strength, and two, I don’t have anything to brace myself against to apply pressure in order to leverage the non-brute strength I do have.
Plan B: Maybe if I just wriggle a bit, I can either make the rope fray more or somehow unhook myself. Taking a deep breath, I start to struggle, undulating my body and trying to pull myself up.
Note to self: Build up upper-body strength.
My arms are noodles and my shoulders are in agony from being in this position too long and from all my thrashing about.
After several moments, I hang uselessly, worn out.
My frantic wriggling has achieved nothing except I now spin slowly on the hook like a rotisserie chicken.
I look down at Issac watching me with a dry expression.
Instead of commenting on my feeble escape attempt, he simply raises his hood and kneels inside the circle.
A bone-handled knife with a wicked-looking blade rests on the floor before him.
He begins to chant, but I can’t make out the words. They don’t seem to be English, but given that he’s about to raise a demon, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what language it is.
“Hey!” a familiar voice calls out, and my stomach clenches with panic. “Yeah, you, Blair Witch Project. Love what you’ve done with the place. Very Exorcist chic. But that’s my little ginger biscuit you’ve got there, so I’ll just be taking him with me.”
“Sam!” I hiss. “What are you doing here?”
“I’d have thought that was obvious,” Sam replies, even as his irritation with me bleeds through. “Rescuing you.”
“Are you mad?” I grit out as I try to crane my neck in his direction to see him better. “Or trying to get yourself killed?”
“Neither,” he snaps. “But I’m plenty pissed with you…Sage…”
“That’s not…I’m not…” I kick my legs to try and swing myself around to face him. “That’s none of your business,” I growl.
“I beg to differ. It’s very much my business seeing as you’ve managed to get yourself kidnapped and strung up like a chunk of meat in a kebab shop window. Which is exactly what I said would happen while you were busy lying to my face.”
“I—”
I’m abruptly cut off by the sound of Issac clearing his throat. He’s now standing and watching us, the knife gripped in one of his hands.
“Oh please,” Issac says from beneath his hood. “Please, don’t let me interrupt you. I have all night. In fact”—he turns his head slowly towards the old desk—“why don’t we ask your other friends to join us?”
The desk shoots across the room and crashes into the wall opposite, leaving Danny and Tristan crouched but completely exposed while Bruce and Dusty hover close to them.
“Surprise,” Tristan says with a little wave of his hands.
“Not really,” Issac replies, his tone droll. “But why don’t you join us? You may as well witness the birth of my new world.”
“You know who we are?” Tris frowns, gasping as Issac lifts his hand and pushes his hood back. “Detective Byrnes?”
“Close, but no cigar.” Issac smirks.
What a fucking wanker, I think to myself, and almost groan aloud as my shoulders give another throb of pain.
“Oh my god, how many glasses of wine did I have? Is his face melting?” Tristan’s eyes widen.
“It’s a glamour,” I reply irritably as I continue to slowly twirl around on the rope.
“A what?”
“A glamour.”
I sigh. I don’t really need to explain the spell further because as he releases his hold on the magic, the illusion dissipates, revealing his true identity.
At this point, I tune out a bit since he starts monologuing again, this time giving Sam and the others the whole Crawshanks Chosen One spiel, generally basking in his own cleverness and bragging about murdering the real Detective Byrnes, the poor man whose identity he’d stolen.
Fucking dickhead.
If I could just get loose, I’d slap him into the middle of the next sabbat. What is it with the bloody Crawshanks family spitting out psychopathic murderers? I’m actually a bit worried what else is going to fall out if I shake my family tree any more.
“Why him?” Sam demands, pointing at me. “You got what you needed from Viv.”
His eyes flick to the edge of the circle, and as I turn slowly on the rope, I jolt in shock when Vivienne materialises. Her eyes are wild, and she slowly circles the perimeter of the demon trap, reminding me of a predator.
Issac is saying something to the others about how Vivienne had been dosing herself with magic, making her blood useless just like we thought, but I’m not paying attention.
My gaze is fixed on her as she suddenly shrieks and throws herself against the circle.
The shield around it blazes and pulses. But that doesn’t stop her—she throws herself against it over and over again, beating her fists at it and clawing desperately.
My eyes widen and my mouth falls open when she is joined by the other ghosts. Dozens and dozens of them, surrounding the circle and beating their fists against the shield.
For me, I realise in shock. They’ve come for me. They’re trying to save…me.
Issac stumbles back at the sheer ferocity of the woman he murdered. She looks like the title character of a horror movie as she fiercely flings herself against the barrier, scratching and clawing at the shield. Her nails are torn away and her fingers leave bloody trails against the shield.
Gritting his teeth, Issac turns to me. “I guess we should move things along,” he says coldly.
I barely have time to register the knife, and at first, my brain can’t really comprehend the enormity of what he’s done. It feels like he’s punched me in my side.
I dimly hear Sam scream, and my side begins to burn with an intense pain. My vision wavers as my gaze slides from the bloodied knife down to my body. Blood spills down my side, soaking my trousers.
He’s stabbed me. Am I going to die? Is this how it actually ends?
Issac pulls back the knife, now covered in my blood, then wraps his fingers around the sharp blade and slices through his own palm. Drops of crimson splatter across his white robe as he drops to his knees and mutters loudly, pressing his bloodied hand to the centre of the demon trap.
The intricate designs of the trap burst into flames and the floor shakes. The whole building seems to rock on its foundation. With a loud, cracking sound, the bloodstained wood under my feet begins to break open, splintering up and out like something is trying to push its way through.
My whole body is trembling, most likely from the blood loss.
The next thing I know, strong, warm arms wrap around me.
Despite the strength, they cradle me gently.
I blink, realising the warding around the circle has collapsed, and I fight to consciousness as the familiar scent of Sam encompasses me.
Safe.
My vision blacks out for a second before a searing pain in my shoulders jolts me back.
It’s all happening so fast, and I’m fighting to stay awake as the pain threatens to drag me under.
I’m aware we’re moving and then I’m being set down on the cold, hard floor at the edge of the room.
I try not to hiss at the flash of pain that cuts through the now constant throb when someone wipes the blood pooling at my torso.
“Roll him to the side,” Tristan orders, and another sharp stab of pain slices through my body as I’m turned.
“Okay, it went straight through.” I assume it’s him now pressing a cloth against the wound.
“We need to get him to a hospital, but he might be lucky. I think Issac managed to miss skewering anything important. He’s losing a lot of blood though. ”
Sam removes the magical ropes and tosses them aside, hissing when he sees the welts and blisters on my burned skin. I hear Tris mutter something, but before I can figure it out, the floor gives an almighty heave beneath us. Ceiling plaster rains down as Sam shelters me with his body.
There’s another ominous cracking sound, followed by maniacal laughter. Pushing my eyelids to stay open, I twist my head back towards the circle and the devil’s trap at its centre, where Issac kneels beside a huge chasm that has opened up in the floor.