It was nicer than I expected, a little rundown, but clean. The two story white house had a partial wrap around porch with paint peeling off the railings in places. The yard was kept trimmed and tidy with a garden of curious plants growing on either side of the front steps. Black nightshade, henbane, belladonna, coriander, sage, pepperwort, and white sandalwood were a few of the plants I recognized immediately. There were other plants that I couldn't recall the name of, but I knew they were used for protection. This was definitely a witch's house. No doubt about that.
I was still trying to wrap my head around the bomb Sam had dropped on me in the car and I was beginning to get nervous about her ability to keep her shit together in the house. I can't imagine that much power being unleashed and I sure as hell didn't want to be around if it is.
"So where is the grimoire?" I asked.
"I'm not sure. Let's start on the top floor and work our way down," Sam suggested, the tension clear in her posture.
"I guess I am ready when you are. Let's get in and out, OK? Don't think about anything other than getting the grimoire," I tried to reiterate. "Don't get distracted."
Sam nodded and took a deep breath as she opened the car door. She slowly approached the front steps, waiting for me to follow. As soon as I stopped behind her, she moved up the stairs to the door, grabbing the doorknob. Locked.
"Reserare Ostium," Sam said with a flick of her wrist and the door swung wide. She seemed to study the door frame, hesitantly, as if walking through it might physically hurt her, but she went in.
We walked into a foyer with the kitchen to the left, a family room to the right, and stairs straight ahead. Looking around, it was an average home belonging to an average family. Toys were scattered here and there; Barbies and My Little Ponies, a bin of legos. There were still breakfast dishes on the kitchen table. I headed straight to the stairs leading to the second floor. At the top was a hallway with four doors, three bedrooms and a bathroom I suspected. As I walked toward the door at the end of the hall, I stopped to look at a collage of the photos hung on the wall. They looked like a picture perfect family. I assumed the woman was Sam's mother, a pretty blond woman, slight and smiling. The man must have been Alan. He was a nondescript man in his thirties, short brown hair, average build, nothing distinguishing. With an amiable grin on his face, he looked unassuming, with an air of trustworthiness even. Apparently that was a façade. I could relate. I've had years of practice, learning to appear genial and non-threatening.
Then then there was the little girl in the pictures. She had a familiar giant mop of unruly curly hair along with a grin missing the front teeth. Her warm honey colored skin was such a contrast from the parents in the picture. Her face looked so much like her mother's, yet she looked so different. She was wilder, free, a tiny little thing brimming with exuberance. The only person that controlled Sam was Sam. Even at this young age, just from an old photo, I could tell she was born a spitfire.
"That picture was taken soon after I started Kindergarten," she told me. With disgust in her voice she continued, "Alan was the only father I ever knew. I remember I used to love him, trust him. I was a stupid, naïve child." She spat the last words out, brimming with bitterness. At least I always knew my father hated me. I never had to endure the disappointment of learning he never loved me in the first place, since I don't recall him ever caring about me at all.
I just nodded and moved on to the end of the hall, opening the last door. I reminded myself that we needed to stay focus. In and out. No distractions.
We entered the master bedroom slowly. It was an average bedroom, like millions of others. In the corner, on a chair, was a laundry basket with clothing waiting to be put away. The dresser was covered in various knick-knacks and bottles of perfume. The bed was sloppily made, as if the covers were just thrown on in the morning rush out the door. There was a woman's robe laid across the footboard of the bed, Sam's mother's I realized. I peered at her out of the corner of my eye and could see the moment she registered its presence. There was just a momentary halt in her steps forward, then her jaw tightened and she moved on with her usual determination.
Good girl. Keep moving, don't think…
"Indicent Quid Quaero, Indicent Quid Quaero, Indicent Quid Quaero…" Sam began chanting to herself, her eyes closed as she tried to sense the grimoire. She wandered to all corners of the room before she stopped. "Not here, let's move on," she concluded brusquely as she pushed past me and down the hall to the next door.
She stopped briefly in the bathroom, did a quick chant and moved on without a word. With an abrupt turn, she stepped to the door directly across the hall. With another pause as her hand gripped the knob, she closed her eyes tightly, took a deep breath, and opened it. I followed her in to what must have been her six year old self's room. It was exactly what I would have expected to see in a happy little girl's room. A purple floral bedspread on her single bed, overrun by stuffed animals, puppy posters taped on every wall, piles of dolls on a child size table with two small chairs, and a shelf filled with dozens upon dozens of books. The only thing out of place was a row of fifteen or so candles along the windowsill. They varied in size, shape, and color.
"What's with the candles? Baby witch practice?" I asked.
"Bingo. Mom tried to teach me precision and constraint at an early age. The goal was to light the candles in a specific order in quick succession, then extinguish them in a different order. Sort of like a twisted, witchy version of Simon, you know, that game where you have to press the different color buttons in order?" she explained.
"Yeah, I have spent my fair share of time trying to entertain myself with one of those. Were you any good at it?" I inquired.
Sam gave me a patronizing look, wiggled her fingers and the candles ripped to life, each wick igniting one after another. She quickly followed by extinguishing them each with a snap of her fingers, all in about 20 seconds.
"Impressive," I admitted. I swear, any chance she had to flaunt her magic she took, though I really couldn't blame her. "We best get back to it though," I insisted.
Sam began her chanting again, palms up, walking around the room. Nothing. I headed to the door, ready to move on, turning around as I reached the threshold. Sam had stopped at the bed, picking up a particularly worn stuffed rabbit. She held it to her face and inhaled deeply, a satisfied smile drifting briefly across her lips, before she dropped it back in place. I couldn't imagine what she was thinking about in that moment. Maybe the memories of the happy and carefree days of her childhood, memories long forgotten, were flooding over her. Perhaps a reminder that things were once good and right in her world? These were things I couldn't relate to. I don't have any memories I would call happy, certainly none that were carefree. I do remember a brief time when we were very young, maybe four or five, when Jo seemed to care for me. It wasn't too long before good ole' Mom and Dad had her drinking the anti-Kai Kool-aid.
As we continued through the last room upstairs, an office/ library, my mind continued to ruminate on which was worse… having love and happiness and having it taken from you or never having it at all. On one hand, experiencing love, deep parental love, and having it ripped from you would leave an indelible mark, always reminding you of what you were missing. Like a memory that was a stain. I concluded that life was easier for me. I never had anything to lose so I never had to endure the feeling that something was missing. You couldn't miss what you never had. This began to itch at the edges of my mind. I needed to hurry things along. Every extra minute in this house was another memory pulled from Sam's subconscious, every single one could be the knife that cut the threads of her sanity.
Sam finished in the office, finding nothing, and we moved down the stairs again quickly. Sam did a quick sweep of the family room and the dining room just beyond it while I waited near the bottom of the stairs. She returned, shaking her head slightly. The kitchen was the last stop on this floor. I proceeded in, striding past the table as I head toward the back of the house. When I turned to look for Sam, she was still standing at the edge of the kitchen, where the old cracked linoleum met the shag carpet. There was deep trepidation etched in her face and she paled, her hands shaking. She was staring at the floor. I had been afraid of this. I could tell she was reliving her mother's murder. I had to get this shit under control, so I sprinted back to her, grabbing her shoulders.
"Hey…look at me," I snapped sternly as I shook her. "Look at me! We need to find the grimoire, remember? Focus, OK?" She looked up at me, her eyes blank…lost. "Sam!" I shouted, "5 more minutes…can you keep it together for 5 more minutes? We are almost done. Then we'll be out of here."
She nodded, taking in a shaky breath. A moment later she closed her eyes and began chanting again, making a full pass around the kitchen. I could see her hands were still shaking. She suddenly met my eyes, realizing I had noticed. She dropped her gaze and flexed her fingers into tight fists, then rubbed her palms on her shorts quickly before she strode over to where I was standing.
One floor left to check, the basement. If the grimoire wasn't down here, I wasn't sure what we would do. It had to be, I mean what better place to hide mystical texts than in a creepy fucking basement. I reached for the knob when Sam's small hand suddenly gripped my forearm tightly, stopping me from turning it.
I looked at her, confused.
"Are you going to be able to do this? We just have the basement and then we can get the hell out of here," I reminded her. I took her face in both of my hands, forcing her to concentrate on me. "Nothing is going to happen. These are just memories, they aren't real. I am not going to let anything happen, ok? We are going to go down there and get that damn grimoire and we are going to get home. Do you understand?" She was watching my lips, her eyebrows furrowed, "Do you understand?" I asked again, angrier, "Say it, say you understand."
"I understand," she promised.
I pulled the door open swiftly, in a hurry to get this done. I could tell she was hanging on by her fingertips and I need to get us out of there. Taking the stairs three at a time, I hit the bottom in a flash as Sam slowly followed. The basement was split in two by the staircase; to the left was storage, filled be stacks of boxes and other unused items, and to the right was a larger room that must have been used for coven rituals. There was shelving along the walls where jars of herbs, potions, and other spell ingredients were lined up in neat rows. I saw the pentacle Sam had referred to earlier carved into the concrete. There was a table against the far wall with a few chairs; otherwise the room was empty aside from the gas furnace near the rear of the space right next to a short set of stairs that led to the bulkhead. Sitting right on the table was the goddamn grimoire, right out in the open. Relief swept over me as I walked over to grab it. Looking back, I saw Sam enter the room as I was leaning down to run my hand over the cover.
That is when the wave hit me, like a sonic boom of magic exploding from a singular focal point. I was slammed against the table, the edge hitting me right under my ribs. As I fell to the floor gripping my side, I saw Sam drop to her knees in the middle of the room. She was shuddering violently, her eyes rolled back so only the whites showed. Magic was rolling off her, burning pulsations hitting me. I struggled to crawl to where she kneeled, making only slow progress as her magic pushed me away. It was like straining against hurricane force winds.
"Sam!" I yelled, "You need to stop."
An agonizing moan began to build in her throat, eventually culminating in a terrifying howl. Holy shit, she was full on unleashing her power. It was thrumming out so brutally that it was causing the foundation to shake. The wooden structure of the house began to creak and groan. She was going to bring the whole damn thing down on us.
I was still trying to make my way to the center of the room where she was now perched on her hands and knees. An unseen wind picked up in the basement, whipping around us, sending bottles and vial smashing to the concrete floor. The screech issuing from Sam's mouth was inhumanly piercing and thunderous. Even with my hands covering them, my ears were wrenched with pain from the sound, unbearable and penetrating, tearing my eardrums. Soon blood was dripping from my ears and down my neck. Any of the glass vessels that were not thrown from shelves began to shatter in response to the amplitude of her shrieks.
I struggled closer, trying to get her attention and talk her down. I kept screaming her name, but she was completely unresponsive. Each wave of magical release that shook from her body hit me harder, every one hotter than the last. It began to burn my skin, like flash sunburn. If this lasted much longer, I would blister. I kept closing in, each inch forward taking a substantial amount exertion.
When I finally reached her, I grabbed her shoulders and shook her hard screaming her name. I tried to focus on her face with great effort. Fuck, her eyes had turned completely black. This just got better and better. I saw cracks were twisting up the concrete walls around us, chunks falling to the floor. Furniture was crashing down on the levels above us. It wouldn't be long before the ceiling gave way.
"Sam!" I shouted urgently, "Can you hear me? You are going to kill yourself! You need to stop…LOOK AT ME!"
She didn't even register my presence. An epiphany suddenly hit me. If she was overwhelmed with magic, causing it to rip out of her like a radioactive waves, then maybe I could siphon it out of her. If I reduce the load on her body, maybe she could regain control. I grabbed her forearms and prepared myself. As I began trying to pull magic out of her, it was forced into me like a firehose filling a bucket. My hands locked on her arms as my head was slammed back as my vision went black.
Images started emerging in my head.
A woman lying on the floor of the kitchen, reaching toward me as blood spurt forth from a deep gash in her throat. Tears rolling down her cheeks as she looked at me until the life left her, blood pooling under her inches from where I knelt.
I was injected with these feelings of grief and anguish and rage and helplessness. It struck me that I was sharing these memories with Sam, reliving them with her, seeing the things that had brought her to her knees.
A man violently grabbing my arm, no Sam's tiny arm…the arm of a child. He pulled her across the basement yelling at her.
"You will give us your magic and you will do as you are told," he threatened, back handing her across her tiny face.
I felt the strike and filled with rage.
He pulled her over to the furnace and opened the tiny door. It was not big enough for an adult to fit through, but it would fit a child with a slight frame, someone like Sam. The man picked her up and shoved her through the opening roughly, slamming the tiny door behind her.
"If you refused to cooperate, I will burn the fucking magic out of you," he seethed as he flipped the furnace on with her inside.
Oh my god, he was going to cook her alive. I could hear her screaming and pounding on the walls, cries filled with panic. The terror started to seep into me like a poison and I could feel the brutal distress taking over all my senses. I knew it wasn't real, but it felt real. Holy shit did it feel real. Sam's desperate need for survival surged in the pit of my stomach. I began to hyperventilate, the food in my stomach struggling to stay down. The smell of burning flesh began to prickle my nose.
"I'll do it," she cried. "Please! Let me out! I promise I will behave!" her wails piercing the silence of the room. Finally the man opened the door and pulled her out, her shins and hands blistered from the heat.
Suddenly, I was in the family room standing in front of the same man as he sat in a recliner.
Hostility ebbed through his features, the focus of which was a teenage girl standing in front of him. She looked to be a sophomore in high school, her signature wild, curly hair pulled back in a ponytail. She had a mask of defiance on her face but I could see her fingers trembling slightly. She was putting up a brave front, though she had not completely convinced herself this was the wise move. I could feel the apprehension, the unsureness quietly slithering through her mind.
"Listen here, little witch," he spat out with disgust, "If you think you are leaving this house, you have another thing coming, especially not with Colin."
"You can't keep me locked up for the rest of my life," she screamed, "Colin is part of the coven. What could possible happen? " She paused, weighing her option, then continued in a low, threatening tone with her eyes lowered, brows drawn down, "I think you will find my lack of cooperation very difficult to deal with if I don't get at least a night a month out of this house."
It sounded like a typical fight between a protective father and his teenage daughter demanding more independence, when in reality it was a hostage negotiation, the hostage being the one to try to parley her own freedom.
The man stood, towering over her. True to form, she stood her ground, jaw jutting out in opposition. For a few tense moments they stared at each other, neither backing down. Suddenly, as quick as a viper, his hand flew, striking her brutally across the cheek, the room ringing with a sickening smack. Sam hit the ground and I could feel the mind scrambling pain splinter through her face, causing my head to swim temporarily. The man bent down grabbing her arm hard enough to cause immediate bruising as he yanked her off the floor.
"You don't seem to understand how things work, do you. You will never leave this house. You will give your magic to me when I say you will," he cautioned. A vile, predatory smile spread over his face and he continued, "And when you are old enough in a year or two, I will father your child, the next in the de la Barthe line. When you are of no more use to me, well, I think you remember what I do with women who outlive their usefulness." With his final remark, he threw her to the ground again, her cheek rapidly swelling, some blood trickling down from where the skin had parted.
For the first time, I start to feel real fear for Sam. She was defenseless against him. He had her magic, he was physically dominant, and he had an entire coven behind him. It was like cornering a desperate wild animal with a shot gun. There was the hunter and the hunted and the hunted could only run. I was very familiar with this game of cat and mouse. Unexpectedly, I started getting this counterintuitive feeling emanating off Sam. It was confusing, she should have been terrified, but she was amused, white hot rage built in her.
She looked up at him and let out a venomous snicker. This really did not sit well with the man. "You think you have something to laugh about, you little bitch? I have your magic and you have nothing. You can't even defend yourself," he finished as he began to roll up his sleeves, readying himself to give her a good old fashion beating.
"I am done with letting you use me. You will not control me for a minute more," she seethed, raw fury craved deep into her features,"you shouldn't be so sure about how much of my magic you took, you piece of shit."
Her statement had clearly thrown the man off and he halted in slight confusion as Sam rose from the ground, raising her hand to him.
"Emisisse Sanguinem Ulcus," she thundered, dropping the man to his knees screaming. "You know, Alan," she hissed, "you may have been able to control my mother, but you always underestimated me. Over the past six years, every time you and the coven preformed that little ritual to stripe me of magic, I've taken the opportunity to practice, resisting the spell, getting stronger. Each time I was able to retain a little more of my magic and, well, a little de la Barthe magic is a hell of a lot more powerful than all of your fucking hilly billy magic put together." Swiftly, she slammed her hand closed into a fist and he dropped to the ground choking. He struggled and writhed for a few minutes, Sam standing above him with her fist closed tightly, knuckles turning white. Then he just stopped moving.
She loosened her grip, falling to her knees. Unexpected sobs started racking her tiny frame. Slowly, the sobbing transitioned to laughing, tear still rolling down her cheeks furiously. The relief that was washing through every fiber of her body filled my mind. She was finally free of the man who had held her prisoner for years, torturing her. She began to compose herself, wiping her cheeks and getting to her feet. Without another moment's hesitation she directed her hand toward the couch, flames igniting wildly from the cushions. With another flick of her wrist, the curtains caught fire, then the kitchen table. She turned and walked out the front door, slamming it behind her with a flick of her finger, the glass shattering outward from all the front windows of the house. As she walked down the path to the street, she gave a final twist of her wrist causing the entire house to engulf in an extraordinary inferno.
As my vision came back into focus, I had returned to the basement with Sam, her magic still pouring into me. It was more than I could handle, every cell of my being was on fire and my skin felt like it was ripping apart. My hands tore from her forearms, falling to the floor in a desperate attempt not to vomit. Her intense exodus of magic was still thrumming and pulling apart the foundation of the house, the surges still scorching, making it hard to breath. The tornado of debris flying around us made it difficult to see.
I vaguely realized that the staircase leading to the kitchen had collapsed and the support beams above us were working their way loose. The sudden comprehension of the imminent danger brought my focus back to the present. I grabbed Sam by the shoulders, trying to shake her into consciousness as I screamed her name again. One of the beams overhead finally came loose and I threw up a protective shield around us just in time.
Holy shit, it was nice to have magic again. Oh, how I had missed this.
I tried to pull her toward the bulkhead stairs, but I couldn't budge her. Maybe I could use magic to move her? The panic in me was building and I was getting frantic. At the rate she was expelling energy, her body would give out. Her skin was turning a sickly shade of blue from lack of oxygen. If she died, I didn't have a chance at getting out of this godforsaken prison world, not to mention I would be alone again which was a prospect that I didn't relish. My thoughts were racing and without thinking, I grabbed her and kissed her hard. I have no idea what came over me or what I was trying to accomplish. I just kept kissing her, my lips parting hers, holding her firmly to me, until she started kissing me back, her hand rising to the back of my neck, making a shiver run down my spine.
Her eyes became her own again and she was getting the expulsion of her magic under control as I continued to hold her close. The protective shield around us, still intact, kept falling debris from hitting us.
"Can you move," I asked, "Can you stand?"
Without a word, she stood up and reached her hand past me, summoning the grimoire into her grip. "Let's go," she said, pulling me up the stairs as she shoved the bulkhead doors open.
From the outside, the house was tipping at a dangerous angle. By the looks of it, we had gotten out just in time. She continued to pull me around the front of the house to the car. Pulling the keys out of her pocket, she popped the trunk, throwing the grimoire in, and taking one of the gas cans out. In her usual defiant manner, she marched back to the house and flung the front door open. I followed quickly, beginning to yell out a warning not to go in, when she flung the can in the air and screamed "Motus!" The gas can flew with impressive velocity through the front door, exploding on the steps leading to the second floor.
She backed up to where I was standing and twisted her wrists, causing the house to go up in flames for a second time. It was only a matter of minutes before it was completely consumed by the fire, the heat becoming so intense that we had to retreat to the street.
"Nothing like a good arson to improve the mood," I quipped.
She just smiled faintly, turning to look at me. "You're hurt," she pointed out, frowning.
I couldn't hear her very well, my ears filled with blood and all. I gave her a puzzled look and then I realized that the burns I received in the basement had in fact blistered in some places. I also had a serious bruise forming on my side, where I collided with the edge of the table.
"I'm fine," I shrugged it off, "I can heal myself, thanks to your borrowed mojo."
She looked dissatisfied with my response as she leaned over to pull a cloth out of the trunk. Gently, she wiped the blood from my neck and face. She was so damn short that she had to lean against me to reach my ears. Even after all the shit that went down, she still smelled fantastic. Much to my embarrassment, I started feeling a stirring in my pants…
Christ, she smells so fucking good and her breasts are pressed against me. God, the things I want to do to her right now. C'mon, get it together, Kai. Think baseball, naked old ladies, Latin verb conjugation, anything but her…
I took the cloth from her hands and gently pushed her away, cleaning off the rest of the blood myself. I didn't need Mr. Happy poking her, at least not right now. Turning my back to her, I chanted for a minute until the blisters subsided and my hearing came back. Life was so much easier with magic. It had been such a long time…
"See? All better," I showed her.
"Thanks," she offered, "for being my lifeline in there."
"I need you to resurrect this Bennett witch. I can't lose my ticket out of her, now can I. Though, now that I sucked up a ton of your magic, maybe I don't really need you anymore," I goaded.
She gave me one of her don't give me your shit looks. "A simple you're welcome would suffice, jackass," she remarked.
I grabbed her hand, looking her in the eye with my usual mischievous smirk. "You are welcome," I told her. She smiled back, not pulling her hand away.
So, we stood there watching the house burn to the ground until after sunset, leaning against the car with our fingers laced together. As night consumed day, only the glow from the fire illuminated her face, making me smile to myself.
This chapter took a while to write. Thank you so much to everyone who has left reviews! I truly appreciate it and love to hear what you think.