Sapphire Curse, page 13
part #1 of Rebels of the Realms Series
“Go ahead and scratch up my grandmother’s floor however you need,” said Darcy.
Jasmine dropped the chalk. “I’m so sorry.”
“I’m kidding. Go ahead.”
“Whew,” said Jasmine as she picked the chalk back up to finish the design. “One spell was from our great-grandmother. It called for the head of a cow.”
“How many magic books have you read?”
“Don’t ruin my reputation, but I’m an academic like you. I had a 4.0 in college. I got halfway through the program before I dropped.”
“Did you change your mind?”
“I didn’t, but life did.”
Darcy nodded. There was more to the story. Even the house knew it and went silent to hear it. Darcy knew the look on Jasmine’s face meant there were walls that couldn’t be seen, and she respected that they weren’t meant to be climbed.
Darcy said, “Tell me something before we do this. Some stories make magic seem like some satanic religion. Is there any basis for that?”
“No,” said Jasmine, confidently. “There’s a book with witch history that Mary wrote. There have been some witches with some really wicked intentions, but it’s never been about Satan or evil. There’s a lot of stuff about keeping that kind of thing at bay with protection spells and whatever else.”
“So no devil worshipping naked in the moonlight?”
“No, but maybe that’s in some secret stash I haven’t found yet. Magic XXX.”
Grinning, Darcy asked, “Why do people get into magic then?”
“Witches have always been in search of making the world better. When there was no answer in front of them, they looked to realms beyond them.”
“And what realms are we drawing on this morning?”
“Nothing bad,” said Jasmine, reaching into her bag for a small red book. “Mary does have some scary spells. One lets you bargain with death, but there are like five double Xs by that. One is the Barren Blood Spell, and it’s so bad she ripped the instructions out.”
“Ours isn’t scary?” asked Darcy, starting to doubt her cousin.
“Not at all! We’re calling on the realm of voyaging. It’s for traveling magic, though I don’t really know what that is yet.”
“That doesn’t sound bad,” said Darcy.
Jasmine crossed her legs and leaned forward. She pressed her elbows into the sides of her knees. She held out her hands, palms up. She said, “In my bag is a lighter. Wanna light us up?”
Darcy lit the fire while Jasmine glanced down at the open book.
“This should be simple,” said Jasmine. “The deer is one animal that can be found in all realms and can do the searching for us.”
“Wait,” Darcy snickered. She turned her head to the left and then the right, examining the odd squiggles and lines. “That’s a deer?”
Jasmine snapped, “If you can believe in magic, you can believe in my deer.” She sat up straight and held the chalk at the bottom of the supposed deer, two inches away. “I’m going to draw a circle around it. It says you need a vessel with a deer’s antler in it, which I could not find anywhere in Mary’s stash.”
“Do you have a plan B?” Darcy questioned.
Jasmine squinted and said, “I was kind of thinking you could be our vessel.” Her voice went higher at the end of her proposal. “You can do magic without vessels.”
Darcy mulled the thought over. She knew it might not work. It might not be safe. Despite doubt and hesitation, curiosity won. She nodded and sighed.
Jasmine instructed, “When I complete the circle, put your hand on the center. Usually that’s where the vessel would go.”
The chalk struck the floor and squealed. Jasmine was far better at drawing a circle than a deer. A quarter of the way around, she said aloud, “We call upon the passer of realms to connect us where we know not. We search for a man lest he not be forgot.” She completed the circle and nodded at Darcy. The second Darcy touched the deer, she cringed.
The chalk glowed in the same vibrant blue as Darcy’s light. A tremor twisted up Darcy’s arm until it hit her shoulder and swelled. Soon the pain popped, and she jerked her hand out of the circle.
“Are you okay?” asked Jasmine, freaked out.
“Magic always hurts,” said Darcy as she massaged her shoulder.
The deer held its blue glow, alive because of Darcy’s light. There were many people that could say the same. The pain was a small price to pay to give others another chance. This fee might stop a wicked vampire from slaughtering countless people. The pain was cheap in comparison.
Darcy questioned, “What now?”
“Um,” said Jasmine. She flipped to the next page of the book. “Of course. We need to tell it who we’re looking for.”
“Traian,” said Darcy.
“Um—do we know his last name?”
Darcy shook her head. Jasmine repeated the name, dragging out the sound as though communicating with a ghost. Nothing happened.
Clearing her throat first, Darcy said, “Traian, the maker of the Eternal Eight.”
The wood in the fireplace cracked. The flames vanished. The house grew silent, curious itself as to what would happen.
“Maybe he’s dead or something,” said Jasmine.
“They didn’t kill him,” Darcy assured her.
“How do you know? Maybe they are covering—” Before Jasmine could finish her thought, she choked. She closed her mouth and tried to swallow. The sound was like a bubble forming in her throat, unable to burst. She gripped her throat like something unseen was fighting to take it from her.
“Jasmine,” said Darcy. Her chest filled with panic, setting her heart on a race to give the speed of light a run for its money. “Say something.”
Jasmine’s mouth opened like something forced it from within. Instead of words came smoke that coiled upward like a seducing snake. The smoke lingered between the two women and darkened. It drew Darcy toward it like an enchantment. There was depth to the thin veil. Streaks of crimson lightning cracked within the image. The crimson spread, a virus intent to infect everything around it.
In the smoke was the shape of a man’s profound brow, followed by his nose and a square jaw as the face turned. The crimson streaks dug into the man’s face, and he opened his mouth. A feral roar shook the room, ringing from Jasmine instead of the man.
Darcy swung her arm at the smoke, splitting it in two. The scene hissed when torn apart. The crimson faded, leaving simple smoke behind that soon thinned to nothing on its climb toward the ceiling.
The heels of Jasmine’s hands caught the floor. Her next breath was desperate and grateful. Darcy rubbed Jasmine’s back and watched the last traces of smoke trickle up from the corner of her lips.
Jasmine heaved and asked, “What the hell?”
“I’m guessing the notes in the spell didn’t explain how that was going to go down,” said Darcy.
“I saw things,” said Jasmine as she rubbed her throat.
“Like where he was?”
“It was my old car,” said Jasmine as she swallowed the bitter flavor of smoke. Her gaze seemed to come from a place far away when she said, “I drank too much. The car wrapped around a tree.” She trembled.
“It’s okay,” said Darcy, gently touching Jasmine’s arm.
“It’s not,” Jasmine admitted. The smoke had abandoned her, but the images hadn’t. “My boyfriend was with me. This place where Traian is at knew that memory. All the whispers around town how I only lost my license kept replaying. They said I must have been sleeping with the judge.”
“We shouldn’t have messed with this spell,” said Darcy, soft and feeble. She didn’t dare raise her voice in fear it might break Jasmine or herself. “I’m sorry you had to feel all that again.”
“That’s the thing though,” said Jasmine, finally lowering her hand. “I didn’t feel anything. It was some kind of void. I didn’t exist. That was crazy shit.” She tapped on her chest with three fingers. “The realm of penance.”
“Huh?”
Jasmine moved up to her knees. “It’s one of the realms Mary put a double X by. It’s a place of judgement for what you’ve done and will do. Any spell that references it has the same symbol. I get the impression it’s a realm Mary wouldn’t mess with at all. Your friends sent their maker there.”
“They can deal with that,” said Darcy. She bit down on her bottom lip. Jasmine reminded Darcy of Carter when he would try to sweep strong feelings away by focusing on something else that seemed bigger. When Jasmine didn’t give anything, Darcy pried. “How are you feeling?”
“Shaken,” Jasmine admitted.
“We wouldn’t be human if we never made mistakes,” said Darcy.
Jasmine scoffed, “Have your mistakes ever killed someone you loved?”
Darcy didn’t answer. She murmured, “He’s the one you saw in the rain.”
Jasmine said, “I see him everywhere already.” She slapped her thighs, like the sound was a gong meant to signal an end to the unpleasant conversation. “We got what we were after. We know the maker is in the realm of penance.”
“But how he got there is a different story,” said Darcy. “I’m not sure if I should tell them. Maybe I’ll talk to Thomas about it. He already worries about everything. One more thing won’t hurt.”
Jasmine said, “I still can’t believe Mr. Morgan is a vampire. Winny too. She’s so nice.”
“She’s spunky once you get to know her,” said Darcy.
“And Xavier!” Jasmine gasped. She leaned back, propping her weight on the heels of her hands. “Now I can see him as a vampire.” She rolled her lips inward and moaned a little. “Have any of them bitten you?”
Darcy quickly said, “No. I think they have personal rules about that. I’m pretty sure at least Xavier breaks his.”
“He wouldn’t have to break anything with me,” said Jasmine, rolling her shoulders.
It wasn’t Xavier’s fangs that brought chills to Darcy’s flesh. She said, “I’m pretty sure they all crossed some lines with Traian.”
ξ
Darcy took Jasmine out for lunch before dropping her off at the Redwood house. They covered stories of Russ and Mary and other Redwoods Darcy knew nothing about. She soaked up every tale, piecing together a past she yearned to know.
Once home, Watson beat her to the front door. She pointed to the yard, and he reluctantly let her open the door while he sniffed between the bushes. The day was still inviting. Night was hours away.
As soon as the door opened, Darcy scooted inside the foyer and closed it back behind her. Her hand drifted to the deadbolt and turned it. With the click of the lock, she tipped her head back into the door.
The house no longer smelled of smoke. A hint of oncoming rain on the air followed Darcy in from outside. A storm would be there soon if reports were to be believed. Darcy went looking for a different kind of rain.
Closing her eyes, she whispered, “Open the door to pains of past. Marry the muse to the wounds that last. From my heart, I give the tears cried long before. Give life to the earth. Be mine alone no more.”
Her fingers burned from the first word to the last. Her bones were her bronze, her knuckles the rubies. The difference between Darcy and a witch’s vessel was that the metals and gems didn’t feel the need to shiver from pain.
She stopped tapping her fingers when rain pattered on the floor around her. The rain clung to her eyelashes, but it wasn’t what kept her from opening her eyes. It was the sound of whimpering that wasn’t her own.
Darcy opened her eyes to find a man sitting on the floor an arm’s distance away, staring at her as she brought the rain upon him.
She whispered, “I’m so sorry, Alex.”
The rain carved muddy trails into his caramel skin. His dark eyes had a hollow expression. He seemed like a lost man wandering. His body told horrific tales. There were open gashes and festering wounds. Half of his face was marred like it had scraped across a road. The bone of his thumb was visible from a clean slice from one end to the other. Then the rain darkened and thickened, and the man was suddenly a victim to a shower of blood.
Darcy’s breathing broke into a rhythm with her heartbeat. The blood seeped into the crevices between the panels of the floor and into Darcy’s open mouth. She spat it out, but the flavor stained her tongue. She quaked as she watched it fill the man’s mouth and choke him.
All Darcy could do was close her eyes, tuck her chin, and wait out the storm. She had wanted to feel something, even if it was pain. She needed to feel anything that could drive away the guilt that had lingered with her since thinking of Alex hours before.
Though this spell called on another realm, Darcy wondered if the realm of penance had any hand in it. It was obvious there was no intent for her to lose the guilt. It surrounded her like it was all she would ever know—that and the emptiness.
13
On rainy days in Darcy’s youth, her father would light candles and read. He said his father did the same. Darcy had inherited the habit and filled the living area with a dozen candles, as many unscented as she could. A couple did smell like cinnamon. She let those thrive with their thick flames. When the room’s perimeter had a gentle glow, Darcy lit the fireplace and curled up on a small handmade pillow on the end of the couch with a copy of a novel by John Grisham, her father’s favorite author.
Thunder struck when Darcy turned to the last page of a chapter. The sound didn’t faze her. She was too immersed in the mystery unfolding as she bent the corner of the page between her fingers. Because of the rain the only thing Darcy could see in the window was the reflection of herself turning the page as soon as she read the chapter’s cliffhanger. That was until a streak of lightning tore through the dark sky, creating a brilliant flash of lavender.
She wasn’t sure what she had seen. Her fingers went stiff like it had been a spirit calling to her. She slowly closed the book and laid it next to the candle on the coffee table as thunder rolled over the top of the house.
Darcy made her way to the front door and opened it. Rain beat against her. The trees across the road were soldiers standing in a line against the dark clouds above. At the edge of the road breaking the ranks of the trees was Xavier.
He donned a long coat that whipped back in the wind like a sail. The rain rode through the waves of his hair. He was so still that Darcy wasn’t sure if it was him or merely a trick of her mind until she crossed her toe over the threshold.
His focused gaze bit through the night like a beam from a lighthouse that burned straight into Darcy’s soul. Darcy brushed her hair back with one hand as she took hold of the banister with the other. Xavier strode toward her through the sheets of rain. Rather than appear before her in an instant, he took each step like he needed something to slow him down.
Darcy called out, “Is something wrong?”
Her voice stopped his foot just as it was about to take the first step of the stairs. He patted his fist on his chest three times before he said anything more. “You were frightened,” he murmured, weak enough that the rain almost overpowered the sound. “I feel everything. This afternoon you were scared, and it nearly shattered me.” He was clammy, still in a panic from hours before.
Darcy stepped down to him. Within seconds the rain soaked her hair. Inches apart from Xavier, she said, “This is from drinking my blood.”
“I’ve felt others before but nothing like this and never this long,” he said. He tried looking up to her, but it proved too much. “I didn’t want to see you. I thought it might rip out my bones to be so close to you, but it was tearing me apart to feel your fear.”
She cupped her hand over his face and said, “I’m fine. Truly. Are you?”
He pressed his face harder against her hand and replied, “I will be.”
“Come inside,” she said.
As though she had enchanted him with a spell, he followed her in silence. The threshold didn’t stop him. Darcy closed and locked the door, cutting off the sound of the wind. Xavier stood in the dim foyer, dripping as he looked up at the design in the ceiling. The candlelight from the living room caught the drops of rain that trickled down his face. Darcy brushed her hand over his shoulder, and he turned toward her without letting her hand slide away.
“Give me your coat,” she said. He obliged, silent. It was the first time she had seen him in a sweater but not the first in black. She hung his coat on an antique rack she had found upstairs. In the mirror beside the rack Darcy caught Xavier watching her like she was a newly discovered constellation in the sky he thought he knew well from centuries of living only in the night.
“Are you cold?” she said, starting to tremble herself.
He shook his head. “Are you?”
“I didn’t get as drenched as you,” she said. She squeezed out her hair. “It’s warmer in here.”
Darcy walked into the living area, and he followed. She sat on the couch. Xavier remained standing at the other end, watching her.
She asked, “Do you drink coffee? I think I might have some.”
“We can have it though it upsets our stomachs like anything that isn’t blood. Coffee is too bitter for my taste.”
“I won’t put coffee on my vampire menu then.”
“I only want to know what scared you.”
“You’re feeling that much of what I feel?”
He carefully sat at the edge of the couch and replied, “Everything.”
“Everything? Literally?”
Then he finally gave a smirk. He said, “Indeed.”
Her cheeks caught fire. She snapped, “I am never giving you my blood again.”
He closed his mouth and held it shut. Words were there, but he held them captive on his tongue that still sizzled with Darcy’s flavor.
She tucked one leg under her and leaned back into the arm of the couch. “You can feel me, but I don’t know much about you. I know you think you’re charming and irresistible.”
“I do not think that,” he said as he twiddled his fingers with the wet tips of his hair. “I know it.”
There was the Xavier she knew. She laughed, “Were you witty before the curse too?”
