Chapter Twenty-One #2
Trey stood by the bed; Sonya scrambled out of it.
Throat dry as dust, pain screaming in every cell, Owen turned the point of the knife toward his own throat
“I’d do myself first, you fucked-up bitch. Take it, Trey. Jesus, take it before I end up doing just that. I can’t let go of it.”
“I’ve got it. I’ve got you.”
Trey twisted the knife out of his grip, then tossed it on the bed. When Owen swayed, he grabbed him.
Something screamed, something that hadn’t been human in over two centuries.
“Sonya, get a blanket. He’s freezing.”
“No. No, I gotta … Sick.”
When Owen lunged for the bathroom, Trey went with him. “Get the knife, get downstairs.”
Cleo rushed in. “What—”
“I’ve got him. Go!” He slammed the door to the bathroom.
“Sonya, what’s happening?” She turned to the door and the sound of Owen’s retching.
“Trey’s with him. We’ll go down, make tea. He was so cold and pale.”
She picked up the knife, shuddered. “Dobbs killed Astrid with this knife. I recognize it.”
“What’s it doing here?”
“Owen had it.” Sonya took Cleo’s arm, pulled her from the room. “We’ll go downstairs. He’ll tell us what happened when he can. But I think, God, Cleo, I think Dobbs tried to get him to kill us.”
“He would never. No matter what she did.”
“And he didn’t.”
She glanced up as they reached the stairs. It sounded like a war waged from the Gold Room. And thin tendrils of fog tore apart and dissolved in the light.
“I think she drew him up there. He’ll tell us,” she said again, and looked at the knife she carried.
“I’ll make the tea. We need to put that somewhere safe. Somewhere she can’t get to it again.”
“Out of the house,” Sonya agreed. “It can’t stay in the house. I’m taking it out now, out to my car, locking it up.”
The front doors slammed open, shut, open, shut. Lights flicked on and off.
“It goes out now.” Striding to the doors, Sonya yanked one open, shoved through. More screams chased her as she ran to her car. The Gold Room windows crashed open.
She turned with the knife, ready to use it if anything flew out at her.
“But you don’t have that much left tonight, do you?”
She put the knife in the glove box. The screams tapered off as she went back inside and hurried to the kitchen.
“I slept through it, Son. Whatever happened to him, I slept right through it.”
“We all did. I can only think whatever she did targeted him specifically.”
“Because Poole. At least she’s finally shut the hell up.”
“Agreed. Though I like knowing she was really, really pissed off. Let’s do this outside. I’m betting he could use the air, and so could the pets.”
They left the back doors open to the night, set tea out on the deck, and a bottle of whiskey.
When they finally came down, Owen looked steadier, his color back. But his eyes looked haunted.
“Sorry, needed a shower. She was all over me. The smell of her all over me.”
He shook his head when Cleo held out a glass with two fingers of whiskey.
“Better stick with that.” He gestured toward the tea when he sat. “Where’s the knife?”
“I locked it in my glove box. It shouldn’t be in the house. It’s the one she used to kill Astrid.”
“Of course it is.” Owen pressed his fingers to his eyes. “Of course it is.”
“Drink some tea.” Cleo rubbed his shoulders before she sat. “Take your time. Tell us when you’re ready.”
Tea wasn’t something he’d choose to drink, but despite all the heaving, his guts still felt cold. So he picked it up, drank. Since it soothed his raw throat, and all the way down, he drank again.
“I woke up, just bang, awake. I checked the time, and it’s—what? Around one-thirty, something like. It’s blurry. Then in my head, my name. Over and over. I felt something.”
He looked at Sonya. “Not like what you describe with the mirror, but something pushing me to get up, check it out, right?”
“You didn’t wake me.”
“Didn’t even think about it,” he said to Cleo. “Probably wouldn’t have anyway, because, at first, it was more like, what the hell? I went out in the hall, and maybe I thought about getting Trey, but I just didn’t. I knew I wasn’t dreaming, I knew it, but it was like that. Not really real.”
He stared at the tea, trying to bring it back, but it kept going in and out, in and out.
“I know I started up to the third floor, and then it just isn’t clear. Fucking brain fog,” he muttered, and rubbed at his forehead.
“There was actual fog,” Sonya said. “It was thinning, dissolving, but there was a kind of mist on the stairs and up.”
“That was real? Because it felt like that. Like pushing my way through a wall of fog. And the smell … It had me by the balls. Jones was there.”
He looked down to where Jones sat beside his chair like a sentry. “Part of me knew that, but … It just didn’t matter. I had to keep going.”
Closing his eyes, he tried to see it.
“I think the door was open. Her door. I could hear her, I could smell her. Jesus fuck.”
He put his head in his hands.
“I wanted her. Like I wanted to breathe. More. Then I was in there with her. I don’t remember going in, but I was in there.
And … there was part of me, not a whole lot, but part, that knew what she was.
But the rest? The rest just wanted her. I don’t remember what she said, not at first, or what I said, because it was all just feeling, needing. ”
He dragged his hands through his hair, breathed it out. Drank more of the tea until he could settle again, at least a little.
“There was something … Master and mistress of the manor. Sonya was no true Poole, but I was, and she’d give me forever. And I could have her. I wanted that. It felt like I’d die for that. Anything she asked me to do, I’d do, just to have that. Have her.
“Then the knife, in my hand. She said—I got this clear—‘Kill them. Kill them all. The cousin, her lover, then the friend.’ Get them out of her manor, and she’d burn the bodies. And we’d have forever. I could do whatever I wanted with her, if I did that one thing. Kill them all.”
As he struggled through it, he fisted his hands on the table. “For a minute, or however long, I wanted it. Do that and I’d have all of it. Her. Then she kissed me.”
Fighting not to be sick again, he breathed through his teeth. “She tasted like death. It made me sick, made me hard, then I was in the hall again, and that smell was everywhere. The taste of her was in my throat, and—wait.”
He bore down. “Blood. There had to be blood—she said. I was supposed to taste your blood, all of you. Animals, too. Some part of me kept saying no. Holy fuck no, but I felt like if I didn’t…”
He put his hand down, laid it on Jones’s head.
“I walked into your room, saw Trey, saw you, Sonya. Whatever she did to me, it wasn’t enough.
Just wasn’t enough. I swear to God, I’d have slit my own throat first. And the part of me that thought, just do it?
Even that part got smothered in that smell.
She was still in my head, that smell, her smell, all over me.
But I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t. I swear to you, I wouldn’t have done it. ”
“You didn’t.” Near tears, Sonya reached out to grip his hands. “Owen, she couldn’t make you.”
“Give yourself a break.” Cleo nearly snapped it out. “She bespelled you. The fog? I’m going to say like a drug. You were in a trance, and still you pushed back through it, so give yourself a goddamn break.”
When he started to speak, she snapped again.
“She used you. Like she did Collin Poole all those years ago. And you know what this tells us?”
“That you’re right, you and Sonya,” Trey said. “She can’t hurt us. Not the way she wants to. She tried to use Owen to do her dirty work. She failed.”
“What if I hadn’t seen you? If you’d still been sleeping? If I’d gone in to Cleo first? I might have—”
“Stop it! You didn’t. You wouldn’t. You fought back.” Cleo gripped his hand. “She did all she could do. She raped your mind, goddamn it, Owen, and you fought back. You came back.”
“Clover blasted music. She had your back. Ours,” Sonya corrected. “And, Owen, when you came in, you looked sick, and you turned that knife on yourself. Whatever she did to you, you were stronger. Did you hear her scream?”
“No.”
“Believe me, she did. You beat her, and we’re all here. You’re a goddamn hero.”
“No, I’m not. You don’t understand where my head was, where my body was.”
“I know where it is now. And I know it’s almost three, so here’s what I’m going to say. Let’s go around front and watch her die.”
Sonya pushed up from the table. When she reached for his hand, he sat a moment, unable to speak or move. Then he nodded.
“Okay.”
They walked around the house together, and stood united.
The clock chimed. Overhead, the moon sailed full and white.
They watched Dobbs climb onto the seawall, watched her hair, her dress blow in the wind.
Hands clasped, they watched her lift her hands to the sky as the sea crashed below her.
She shouted out her words, her curse, sealed in blood.
And leaped.
And they stood as the air cooled into the first hints of fall.
“We’re here,” Sonya said. “We’re together. We beat her again tonight, and we’re going to keep on beating her.” Turning, she wrapped her arms around Owen. “Still my favorite cousin.”
For a moment, he dropped his head on her shoulder. “You scare her. I believe that. And I’m with you.”
“I know it. I know you are. Get some sleep.” She kissed his cheek. “She’s done all she can do for tonight.”
Trey lifted her off her feet, held her there a moment before he looked at Owen. “We’ve got women like this? We can’t lose.”
He nodded, then glanced at Cleo. “Need another minute.”
“All right.”
“No, with you.” He took her hand before she could go inside.
“All right.”
He closed the door behind Sonya and Trey, then looked down at the dog who stayed at his side.
“She fucked with me good. This guy? I promised when I took him on, the scrappy one-eyed little bastard, we’d look out for each other. I wouldn’t let him down. And I left him tonight. He got bloodied trying to get to me.”
“You know that isn’t your fault.”
“Doesn’t make it less true. I know you’re going to say it’s not my fault. Mostly I agree, it’s not. It wasn’t. But I need to say I’m sorry.”
“Jones won’t hold it against you.”
“To you. I wanted her, Cleo, and if I’d have had the chance, in that room, at that time? I couldn’t and wouldn’t have stopped myself.”
The sound she made mixed patience with annoyance. “What part of bespelled don’t you get?”
“I need to say it. When I’m with someone, I’m with them. I don’t mess around.”
She angled her head. “If I thought otherwise, you wouldn’t be with me.”
“It wasn’t just wanting her.” Because he remembered that, too well, he scrubbed his hands over his face. “It was like survival. It wasn’t just lust, it was life and death. It’s not lust I feel for you.”
She smiled, laid a hand on his cheek. “Oh, really?”
“Not just. Not anymore. Maybe not from the start. A good, healthy lust, sure. This wasn’t that.”
“Owen, of course it wasn’t. She’s evil. Her magic is evil.”
“But until she kissed me, until I tasted her, I was lost. Even after … I can’t explain it.”
“Do you think any of us expect you to?”
Gently now, she brushed his hair back.
“She could’ve tried this with any of us. But she chose you because you’re a Poole. And she failed because you’re Owen. She’ll never understand loyalty and love.”
“I’m crazy about you.”
“Of course you are.”
“Cleo.” He took her face in his hands. “I’ve been crazy about women before, but not like this.”
“There is no one like me but me.”
“That’s the God’s truth. I need to tell you I’m sorry.”
“Apology unnecessary, but accepted. I hate her for what she did to you, for what she wanted to do to all of us. And I only think more of you because you were strong enough to fight her off.”
“At the end.”
“Good enough, and it’s going to really get me angry if you keep beating yourself up over it.”
“It might take me a little while. It was intense. Meanwhile, here’s something I haven’t said to another woman. Because you’ve got to be careful. I love you. And I’m telling you because tonight brought home shit happens, so why wait?”
“That’s a really good reason, so I’ll join in. I love you right back.”
“I figured.” He drew her close, held on. “Like I figure you’re not moving out of here until you have a studio that stands up against this one. And until this is all over anyway.”
“Are you asking me to, at some point, move in with you?”
“Well, yeah.” He drew her back. “It’ll take a while. I’d need to build on, a lot, but it’s a good spot, great views, especially when we go up.”
“How long’s a while?”
“About a year, most likely, to do it right.”
“All right, we’ll have dealt with Dobbs by then. I’m damn well determined on it.”
“Fine, after we do that, we’ll get married in there somewhere. Sonya’s not kicking either of us out.”
“Who said anything about getting married?”
“I did. I’ll build you a hell of a studio, Lafayette, but you gotta commit.”
“Show me the design, and I’ll give it serious consideration.”
“I’ll work on it. But you don’t get it unless you marry me. That’s the deal.”
Looking at him, she decided on her scale the moment, this moment, rang the bell on romance.
“It’s going to have to be an amazing space.”
“I’ll make sure of it. We’ll look out for each other.”
“Yes. Yes, we will.”
“I won’t let you down.”
And again, the bell rang.
“I know it. Same goes. Let’s go in. You have to get up in a couple hours.”
When they started inside, he looked up.
“I wouldn’t have gotten around to all this yet if she hadn’t pulled this shit tonight.”
“See that? She lost on so many levels. She’s going to keep losing, Owen. I feel more sure of that now than ever.”
“If I’d hurt you—”
“Stop. You didn’t.”
“I mean if she’d managed to pull this off? She’d have pushed me—or maybe wouldn’t have had to push—into killing myself. That’s what she wanted.”
Because she’d thought the same, Cleo only nodded.
“And she’ll never get it. None of us will ever hurt each other. You said she’s afraid of Sonya.”
“I felt that. Through the rest, I felt that.”
“I believe she does. More, I believe she fears what the four of us have together. That loyalty and love. She can’t beat those. Maybe it’s a standoff until we figure out how to get the rings, but she can’t beat what we have together.”
She looked down the hall before they went in the bedroom and thought of long, strong friendships and love that bloomed big and bright.