The Light of the World (10 page)

BOOK: The Light of the World
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"How the fuck? How? I can see it on his face
Nene. Jesus Christ. Jesus. You can't do this to me and to you. Your
mother would…"

My face snaps up and she drops to her knees. She
covers her face and sobs.

"What? What did you say?"

She shakes her head and looks at him, "We need
to run Rayne."

He looks at her and then at me.

"How could you let her live without knowing?"
His sentence makes no sense in comparison to all the other things
in the air, floating around. I feel like any minute they will rain
down on me and I won't live through the shock of everything. I have
dreadful feeling everything is a lie.

I feel like I'm in a dream or a movie.

"You said my mother."

She shakes her head, she ignores me, "You can't
let them have me Van Helsing. Kill me or let us run."

I put a hand out, "Whoa! Whoa! Wait a minute.
You said my mother? Who the hell are you? Aren't you my
mother?"

She turns to face me and her face fills with
rage. Her eyes are glowing green. She covers her face again.

"She isn’t like you. She's a witch. She's an
Earth Witch." His words are deadpan and cold. "I told you their
eyes glow."

She puts her hands out to him. "Let us run. I
promise you'll never hear from us again."

He glances at me. "What are you?"

I spit at him, "What are you? What is she? What
is a Fire Witch or an Earth Witch? WHAT AM I?"

He looks at her and points at me. "Look how
you've raised her. She is defenseless."

I shake my head and scream, "SOMEONE EXPLAIN
THIS TO ME NOW!"

She sobs in a heap on the floor. "I failed
you."

He waits for her to speak but she doesn’t.
"You're a succubus of some sort Rayne. She's your guardian I would
bet. She is raising you the way you should live. Working to keep
your powers at bay." His eyes dart to her, "But why? Who is
she?"

She sobs louder and then her sobs become a fit
of laughter.

She laughs like a crazy woman. She smiles at me
and whispers, "I failed you Rayne." And then she is gone.

"Fuck. We have to leave now."

I look at him, "I'm not going anywhere with you.
I want answers. Actually, fuck the answers. Get the fuck out of my
house right now. My mother just vanished, vanished. Did you happen
to catch that? She stabbed you repeatedly, and yet here you stand.
What in the hell is going on?"

He laughs, "I will answer the questions. Just
stop cussing and freaking out. You sound nuts."

I cry and laugh, mostly out of frustration. I
want Willow and the answers to the questions I have.

"I sound nuts? I sound nuts? I wonder why. Maybe
because you make questions and chaos." I'm a heap on the floor.

He stands and crosses the room in one of his
huge steps. He looks down on me, threatening me with the sheer size
of him. Double my size. Maybe triple. "We are leaving now. I'm not
screwing around. If there is something you need. Like absolute must
have, get it now. I need to find her lair."

My lips tremble, "W-w-what?" I laugh hard. I am
losing my mind. I want to pull my hair out, burn the fucking house
to the ground and blow his car up. Then I want to turn myself in
for killing the man on the grass. That’s what I want to be able to
do.

Instead I sit, frozen and lost. I sit and wait
for things to make sense.

He looks around and walks to the kitchen. He
plays with the cupboards. I glance over. He's standing in front of
a doorway I never knew existed. It's a secret entry inside of the
pantry. He looks at me, "You should probably come with me."

I don’t move. My feet refuse. They need answers.
Answers about the secret room in the pantry and the secret mom I've
never met.

He walks to me and grabs my hand. I can barely
get to my feet as he drags me across the floor. It burns where he
touches me but the feeling of the pain is becoming a comfort. I
think it's the only real thing in my life.

He drags me down the old creepy stairs. They go
down in a circular motion, like a castle tower would. The walls are
brick, like the stairs. It's dark. My eyes light up instantly. I
see perfectly.

I walk to a bench at the bottom of the stairs
and flick a switch on the wall.

He looks around slowly. I don’t get how he can
be so calm.

"This is her lair."

I snort.

"Hey don’t laugh. She's probably in here with
us. Earth Witches are crafty."

I look around but don't see her. When he
couldn’t see her I could.

"Can she kill you?"

He shakes his head, "No. I'm death for her. My
blood, my skin, my spit, my sweat, everything about me is designed
to kill you. All of you." Watching him rip the knitting needle from
his throat and grab her savagely was bizarre. The way he dragged
her downstairs, burning her skin was beyond bizarre.

My skin shivers.

"What's a succubus?"

He walks to where a huge shelf is lined with
books. He grabs a book and carries it to me. He blows the dust off
and hands it to me.

The writing is like nothing I've ever seen.

"What's this book?"

"It's her grimoire and journal. If anything can
tell us what you are, it'll be that. She will have kept track of
things with you. Changes."

He walks back to the table and mixes something.
He starts a fire and points to the stairs, "There isn’t anything in
here. It's all just magic crap."

I look around and shiver. I grip the book to my
chest. The room is small. Books and herbs and vials line shelves
and sit amongst debris on the tables. There is no light or windows.
The walls are the same bricks from the stairs.

I can see chalk drawings on the floor and walls.
Like she had some sidewalk chalk and went crazy with it.

The fire spreads fast. I hear a vial break. He
turns and pulls me up the stairs.

He drags me out to the car and I try not to look
back. I try not to see the happy house I grew up in. The house I
loved more than anything in the world, along with the mother I
loved more than I loved myself. I try not to remember scraping my
knee and the way she kissed it and bandaged me. The way she
mothered me, but never let me call her mother.

She wasn’t my mother. My heart is broken. Seeing
the smoke starts creep out the windows and the broken front door is
killing me. I want my mom. I don’t care if she gave birth to me or
not. She was my mom. Even if she never let me call her that. Tears
burst from my eyes.

He starts the car and we drive away as the
flames engulf the house.

I feel my life end. My old life is gone and the
mixed bag of bullshit that has become my new life needs to be
sorted through.

I look at him and try not to love him. I try not
to feel everything I do, when I look at him. I hate the way I make
him everything.

"What's a Van Helsing? She called you a Van
Helsing."

He pauses and watches me for a moment before
answering. "Your natural enemy. I am the hunter of the things you
all are."

I furrow my brow, "Wait like Dracula versus Van
Helsing? Like the movie with Kate Beckinsale?"

He nods, "You really want to mock me after all
of the shit that's happened?"

"The wolfman?"

He looks pissed.

I laugh, "The swamp thing?"

"Keep laughing. Whoever was coming for you or
hid you with an Earth Witch is going to be pissed when they find
out you're missing."

"So all of it's true. Vampires, Werewolves,
Mummies? Witches and Goblins and Trolls and Faeries?"

"No mummies, that’s stupid. No zombies or
goblins. Try to focus on the plausible beings. They're all true.
Like Vampires and Faeries. Shifters are what you would call
werewolves. The shifters are the only ones you probably would get
mixed up. They are either wolves or foxes or lions or other things.
Some are cats and some are dogs and never do they fall in love." He
looks at me and smiles bitterly, "Like things like us."

I know the pain in my eyes and the hurt crossing
my face is visible. I don’t care.

"Do you love me?" I ask.

He laughs, "I can't. Like I said you're under my
skin but I can't love, not something like you. I should have killed
you the first time I realized." His words cut me. It's deep and I
know I will never heal from the way he says, 'something like
you'.

"Why didn’t you?" My voice is angry.

He shakes his head, "I don’t know. I just know I
can't live without you."

I shudder. I just want to talk and not feel
anything. I've pushed down my feelings about Willow. I can't let
myself acknowledge his confession about his feelings. It's a path I
don’t want to tread upon. Not yet.

"When did you know I was different?"

"The day you ran away from me."

"When you slapped me?"

He knits his brow, "I can never redeem myself
for that. I need you to know I am truly sorry for it. Truly. I
wouldn’t normally have hit you, a girl. You caught me off guard. I
mean I hit the things, like Vampires and Shifters and stuff. But
not regular girls."

I believe him. Mostly because I want to. But I
can't let him know that. "You're irrational. You beat up those
other guys. The guys I dated. I know it was you."

He looks straight ahead and drives like a nut,
"It was wrong. I know that. I was just so angry and drunk. I get
angry thinking about anyone touching you."

My skin shivers again, "That’s creepy."

He doesn’t say anything else. I look down at my
hands and the dried blood. Wyatt's blood is mixed with the blood
from the guy I think I killed. No, I know I killed. I know he was
dead when I left him there alone on the grass.

I look at the book and trace the weird letters,
"Can you read this?"

"Some of it."

He puts a hand over mine and I wince from the
pain. "We'll figure this out okay."

I pull my hand away. My stomach pains and the
burning on my skin is too much to add to everything else.

We drive in silence. I glance over at him and
wonder when I'll be able to be away from him? If ever. My sick
obsession with being near him has been getting worse all day. It's
overtaken the things I am truly devastated about. I have a
sickness. I should be terrified of him. I should be running for my
life. I should call the police. I need help.

I look out the window and see we're back in
Burlington. He pulls up in front of a house. It's small and white
and sort of looks like my house. My old house that now sits in a
pile of rubble and ash. With my old life.

He gets out and runs up to the door. The
waitress answers. The fire witch.

She looks at me as he talks. She looks defeated.
He motions for me to come. I put the book down and climb out of the
car.

I'm shivering. I hug myself and walk up the
steps.

She glares her fiery eyes at me, "Nice. I
fucking help you and you sell me out to him?"

"I didn’t know. I still don’t know. I didn’t
know you lived here. I don’t know anything."

She rolls her eyes and flashes the fire at me
again, "He can sniff us out. Our energy clusters around where we
live."

He crosses his arms impatiently.

She puts her hands on either side of me. I want
to fight her and struggle but warmth seeps into me. I shiver and
let the warmth creep in under my skin. It’s the best I've felt all
day.

"I don’t know what she is but it's not succubus.
It's her way of feeding yes, but whatever her powers are, they're
locked away. I wouldn’t mess with this one Wyatt. You Van Helsings
get too cocky. Let her go back to school."

He smirks, "How long did you know what I
was?"

She laughs, "Please. I spotted you from the
minute we met. That’s why I had my guards up. If I help you, you
leave me alone?"

He nods once. She drags me into the house.

Her house is cute and clean. She points to a
couch. I sit down. She kneels and lights some candles. She puts her
hands into the fire and makes a ball. She puts the fire up to my
face. The heat of is intense.

"Take her hand."

He takes my hand and she looks at me, "You sure
want this?"

I shake my head, "What?" I'm almost biting my
lip from the pain of his hand over mine.

"If I handfast you in magic, it's like being
married in the magical world. It'll stop the pain when he touches
you and stop you from feeling sick all the time. But you'll be
together. Like together-together."

I think for a second, but the burning is getting
to be too much. I nod quickly. I am tired of being tired and
feeling sick. I want to be with him anyway. If I'm really
honest.

She places the ball of fire over our two hands.
She lets it go and it falls onto our hands. I scream in pain. Wyatt
winces. The fire rips through my hand. I see our skin melt and our
hands are one for a second. The skin retreats and forms two hands
again. The fire licks and burns. As the flames die so does the
pain.

My cheeks are wet with tears. I look at her,
"What was that?"

She laughs, "I now pronounce you man and wife.
Good luck kid." She looks at him and drops her gaze, "I have to ask
you to leave. If anyone saw you here…"

He lifts me by my hand, "Of course. Thank
you."

I stutter, "H-h-husband and w-w-wife?" I cradle
my burnt hand, "I thought you were kidding. Like we could date or
something."

She ignores my simpering, "You're gonna have to
run."

"Where? Where should I go? My house burned
down." I almost sniffle again but I don’t. There must a quota for
how much one person is allowed to cry in a week.

"You can come with me." He looks at me and
squeezes my hand. I want to belong with him. His touch is cured. No
pain in my stomach, no burning or sparks. His touch feels like I
always wished it would. The dirty feeling in my stomach is gone.
His grin makes my stomach flutter but it's in a normal boy girl
way.

BOOK: The Light of the World
7.96Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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