Witch World (47 page)

A stalemate had been reached. Something was needed to tilt the scale. Syn believed she possessed that something because she was confident she now had me on her side. On the surface that was absurd. Intellectually, I still knew what she was capable of doing to the world. But emotionally, physically even, she was right—I was with her. My body ached for the pleasure. I didn’t just want it, I needed it. Worse, I knew if I disobeyed, she would give me the opposite.

Absolute agony.

That was how she kept her dog on her leash.

Kendor raised his sword, seeing an opening. He was the oldest in the room. He had seen civilizations rise and fall. He
had loved Syn for two thousand years and knew her better than she knew herself. And he hadn’t survived the rising onslaught of the Lapras without being bold.

To Kendor a stalemate was equal to an opportunity.

He took a step toward Syn.

Syn twisted her head and stared at me.

I understood what she wanted me to do. It was mostly a function of our positioning, and of who trusted whom. James was to my right, Herme was on my left. Both knew me and trusted me. Because neither understood what I had experienced inside the red realm.

While contributing to the fusion, Herme had thrust the pistol in his belt before closing his eyes. His eyes were open now but that didn’t change the fact the gun was only inches from my left hand. If I reached for it, would he stop me? I didn’t think so. After all, I was supposed to be one of the good guys.

I didn’t want to but I did it anyway.

I grabbed the gun and Herme let me take it. Probably he thought I would use it to protect Kendor. Perhaps he realized he was the wrong person to shoot his mother. Whatever the reason, I quickly transferred the weapon from my left hand to my right and lifted the gun.

Kendor paid me no heed. Raising his bloody sword, he took another step toward Syn. His face was a mask of concentration. If he was reluctant to slay the love of his extraordinary
life, he didn’t show it. Yet he didn’t hurry, he didn’t have to. I had seen him in action. I had no doubt he would take her head.

Then it would all be over. We would all be safe.

But the pleasure would be over as well.

“Do it,” Syn hissed at me, finally showing her fear. She did not say it but I heard “or else” in her voice. God, how I hated her then, even though I had just bowed to her. But I think it was that last act that made me feel so helpless in her hands. My heart told me she was a monster, my head said to shoot her, but a part of me I had no name for ordered me to obey her.

I pointed the gun at Kendor’s chest.

“Stop!” I cried.

Kendor stopped in midstride. His gaze swept back and forth between Syn and me, then he nodded sympathetically, as if to tell me he understood my problem. He was the only one. James and Herme both shouted out.

“Jessie!” James yelled. “What are you doing?”

“She’s put a spell on you,” Herme warned.

“It’s all right,” Kendor said quietly, lowering his sword and looking at me with such compassion I felt ashamed. “We can talk about this. We’re friends, aren’t we, Jessica? And we’re here for Lara. Focus on your daughter. She’s the one who can help you now.”

I shook my head, too confused to even look at Lara. “You
don’t understand,” I mumbled. “I don’t want to do this. But I have to. I have to stop you.”

“I’ve stopped,” Kendor replied, letting the tip of his sword touch the wooden floor. “But you must realize what Herme says is true. You’re a young witch who’s been bewitched. That’s what Syn does. I know, she did it to me. That’s why I took so long to tell the Council who she was. I made a mistake, and now you’re making the same mistake.”

I struggled to speak. “I have to shoot you.”

Kendor shook his head. “That’s Syn talking, not you.”

I swallowed. “But the pleasure, I can’t feel it anymore.”

“Because it’s not real,” Kendor said. “Nothing she has shown you is real. Only your daughter matters. Look at your daughter, Jessica, look at Lara.”

I heard Lara make a cooing sound beside me. I began to turn toward her. Then I heard a sharp hissing noise—Syn ordering me once more. I froze.

“Kill him,” Syn whispered.

“Yes,” I heard my body reply. It was not me that spoke, it was not my soul, it was just a lump of flesh that was aching to feel what it had felt inside the red realm. How a base physical longing could override everything I believed in made no sense. Nor did it have to. What had Syn told me? It was not a question of why I should shoot Kendor, the issue was why not?

“I’m sorry,” I said softly as I cocked the hammer. The man
in the pawnshop had demonstrated how sensitive the trigger was once the hammer had been pulled. It took less than a pound of pressure to fire the semiautomatic, a few ounces, and already I was stroking the trigger with my sweaty finger. Kendor sighed as he looked at my face.

“You’re not like her,” he said calmly, and in that same instant he launched himself toward Syn, his sword coming up like a cobra ready to bite. He was fast, ten times faster than me, but he had to travel fifteen feet, whereas my finger only had to move a fraction of an inch.

“Jessie, no!” James cried, reaching for the gun.

I pulled the trigger. The shot sounded like thunder in my ears. But heaven only knew where the bullet was headed. For at the last second James had hit my hand and skewed my aim.

Kendor seemed to skip a step and then stumble. The round had struck him inside the right shoulder, a nasty place because the nerves that controlled his arm and hand were centered there. He didn’t drop his sword but his grip on it weakened and it bobbled in his hand.

That was all the opening Syn required. Stepping toward him, she kicked the blade from Kendor’s hand. As it flew through the air, she pulled a knife from her own back belt. The blade was long and serrated, and it was obvious she knew how to use it. Sure, her husband had taught her. She had it to his neck in the blink of an eye.

It was Kendor’s turn to freeze. Not out of fear, though. I
don’t think the man knew fear. He smiled at his old love.

“You told me the day we met you’d kill me,” he said.

“I was joking.”

“Perhaps.”

She nodded. “I’m sorry.”

He shook his head. “It is I who am sorry. Herme explained what has happened to you. I know you can’t help yourself.”

“Herme,” she repeated, although she didn’t look in the direction of her son. Not even when he spoke up.

“No, Mother,” Herme called.

Syn pressed the blade closer. A line of red appeared on Kendor’s throat. He didn’t back up, he refused to even move his head.

“We cannot both live,” she told him. “Not in this world or the other. You know that.”

He nodded faintly. “It’s all right, Syn.”

Strange, how she smiled right then, I actually glimpsed joy in her face. “You always used to say that,” she said.

“I meant it.”

“Kendor,” she said softly, and suddenly lowered the knife, and for a moment it seemed she would let him go. But then she yanked the blade upward, into his heart, a single quick thrust, before pulling it free. Without crying out, without any sound, Kendor fell to the floor.

Syn turned on us, Kendor’s blood dripping from her knife. Her purpose was obvious. All her enemies would die tonight.
But whether she considered Lara and me to be among them wasn’t clear.

Herme took the gun from my hand and pointed it at Syn. “You’ve done enough,” he said.

She was unmoved. “You should have stayed in the shadows, Herme.”

“I can’t let you hurt these people,” he said.

Syn flicked her empty hand and the gun flew from her son’s grasp. “You possess no weapon that can harm me. Kendor knew that, and so does your accursed Council.”

Herme stepped in front of James and me.

“You’ll have to kill me first,” he said.

“You think I can’t, dear son?”

“No.”

“Then you misunderstand me. I will kill you. It won’t be so hard. Because years ago you forced me to kill you and bury you in my mind.”

Herme nodded in resignation. “Do what you have to do.”

“Herme, move aside,” James said with sudden authority. Taking my hand, still holding our daughter in his other arm, he stepped forward. It was confusing but I felt like I was seeing him for the first time. His face shone with the light of a confidence I had never seen before. Looking at Syn, he added, “Leave.”

Syn acted bored as she used her pants to wipe Kendor’s blood off her knife. “I’m afraid I’ve lost interest in you.”

“What are you doing?” I whispered to him.

James made sure my hand was touching Lara’s as well as his. “She can’t hurt us,” he said. “Not if the three of us are together.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Because of the light and the music. It was there when we first made love, and when Lara was born and I first held her. It comes from a place greater than her silly red sphere.” He added, “That’s why I had to come to witch world tonight. To remind you of that fact.”

“But how do you know?” I insisted. It seemed a reasonable question. But an answer, or at least a partial answer, came to me before he said another word. The love I had felt when I had stared into Lara’s eyes returned. It washed over my chest and seemed to heal the very thing Syn had placed inside my heart within the red sphere. Pain might lead to pleasure but Syn had lied when she said it could ever bring joy. Only love could do that and only love could heal the grief she had exposed me to.

Suddenly, staring at Lara and James, I felt encased in armor. A shield of light and compassion and empathy. All the good things that made it possible for people to be good—if they tried. I saw then I had made a conscious decision to enjoy the pleasure. Now I had to reject that choice and embrace my family instead.

I did it. I just did it. I chose Lara and James.

Meanwhile, James did his best to answer my question. He gestured to Syn. “Try using your black magic on us,” he said.

“If you wish,” Syn replied, raising the knife and pointing the tip of the blade at James. “Pain,” she said softly, and I knew it was a curse and that in a second he might start writhing.

But all that happened was that Lara began to coo softly, and when Syn tried to take a step toward us, she cooed louder. The armor was not imaginary. We were protected. Syn shook her head, baffled.

“What the hell,” Syn whispered to herself.

“Leave,” James repeated.

Syn smiled and poked the tip of her finger with her knife, causing a trickle of blood to flow into her palm. “So your kid can neutralize my abilities. Impressive. But I’m afraid I don’t need them to make you suffer.” She shook the knife in James’s direction. “Do you know what it feels like to be skinned alive?”

My newfound faith began to falter.

James didn’t have an answer to her question.

Syn stepped over Kendor’s body and strode toward us.

Whip grabbed the hem of her pants and spoke in a voice that dripped venom. “It’s my turn, Mommy, let me sting them. Please?”

Syn reached down and patted her son’s head. “All right. Do them all, even the baby. She’s more trouble than she’s—”

Syn was not given a chance to finish. Whip’s stinger swung up and pierced her chest. The poison went into her heart. Her eyes froze open in shock, then she keeled over and lay beside Kendor.

I couldn’t believe it.

I couldn’t even begin to understand what had happened.

“Why?” I gasped. Why did her son kill her?

I looked to James for an explanation.

“Whip went through the death experience with me,” he said.

“Huh?” I mumbled.

“This Whip has our Whip’s memories.”

I shook my head, too dazed to comprehend.

“You know how it works,” James said. “At first you can only carry the memories of the world in which you were connected. So this Whip you see is really our Whip.”

“And you killed him in the real world?” I asked.

“I killed both of us. I had to.”

I shoved James in the chest. “How could you let a child risk his life like that?” I cried.

James smiled. Or was it Jimmy? “Whip had a fatal illness in combination with an inactive healing gene. He had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Of course I let him join me.”

I couldn’t take any more in. It was all happening too fast. But I certainly couldn’t celebrate, not with Kendor lying on the floor. Stepping to his body, I knelt near his head and stroked his beautiful dark blond hair. He lay on his stomach, his face turned my way, his eyes closed. After such a long life, it was impossible to believe he could be dead. But the pool of blood around his heart said otherwise.

Herme knelt across from me, beside his mother. He put a
hand to her head, and we stared at each other through a film of tears.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“There’s no need,” he said.

“I shot your father. I lost control. I—”

“My mother shot my father. You were just the vehicle. Trust me, you did nothing wrong.”

“But if I hadn’t weakened, Kendor would still be alive.”

Herme stared at his dead father. “Even though he came here to kill her, I don’t think he could have lived with himself if he had succeeded. In a strange way, you did him a favor.”

“You’ve lost both your parents. It’s not fair.”

Herme sighed. “It happened. It doesn’t matter whether it’s fair or not.”

Whip came over and hugged me, trying to comfort me. With his hands—not his tail, thank God—he brushed away my tears. “Jessie,” he said, and I realized he could speak because he had his twin’s voice. “I love you.”

“Oh, Whip,” I said, embracing him. I stroked his back but was careful not to let my hand stray too low. His heart might have been pure but his stinger still gave me the willies. Squeezing him hard, I added, “I love you, too.”

Love
, I thought. The word felt so fitting, perhaps because love had been the answer all along. The one thing that could stop Syn.

I looked up at James. “The transformation—how did you do it?” I asked. “
When
did you do it?”

“You forget Herme’s a drug salesman in real life,” James said. “He gave me and Whip what we needed, right after you fell asleep in my arms in the hotel room.”