Thirteen
"Cara, are you paying attention?"
I jerked my head from where I stared emptily into the woods to face Darlene, who stood above me holding the large, red leather book with both hands. She looked annoyed, but I don't think it was wholly because of me. She was having trouble translating the last part of the locating spell: one ingredient.She hadn't been able to find the translation for the one Latin word anywhere.
We sat outside in the muggy August afternoon heat on the stone circle slab. Tansy and I sat on the white washed stones and Darlene paced around us with the large book in her hands. "Yes, sorry, I'm listening," I lied, wiping the beads of sweat forming on my forehead. I was stripped down to nothing but jean shorts and a sweat-soaked tank top that I had rolled up to reveal my stomach, hoping to get some kind of relief from the heat. My shoulder length hair clung to the back of my neck where sweat mixed with the SPF 80 I'd spread all over myself. The sun had finally hidden behind the trees, but the stones were still uncomfortably warm. I felt awful and looked worse. On top of being painfully hot, I was exhausted. The previous night with Jessie had been frustrating, work this morning had been agony, and I had no idea why we were outside in the heat.
"Where are the hairs?" Darlene asked, finally sitting in front of us and splaying the book in front of herself. Her purple dress pooled around her and her long strawberry-blond hair fell over her shoulder like a curtain. She looked beautiful and made me think that if she had pointed ears, she would be a wood nymph or a woodland fairy—some kind of magical thing from the woods. Tansy looked like a shorter-haired gothic version in a long black dress with slits going to her upper thighs and graphic design of three moons on her chest in different lunar phases. They both looked too comfortable in this heat.
"Cara, the hairs!"
I jumped and grabbed my purse that was lumped beside me. "Sorry, it's just so hot out here. I can't concentrate," I whined as I fumbled around for the baggy with two hairs.
"You spend too much of your time hiding out in the air conditioning!" Darlene snapped. "You should spend more time outdoors in nature! We're getting that now!"
I refrained from groaning aloud, but couldn't help frowning at her as I put one of the hairs gently in her palm. She grasped it with two fingers and inspected it.
"What if it's something like pig's blood or something?" Tansy offered, going back to the mystery ingredient.
I wrinkled my nose at the image of myself smeared in pig's blood. I did not want to go anywhere covered in pig's blood, let alone some scary alternate universe, but when I imagined Liz, possibly being tortured and locked up, I thought I could do it.
"I don't believe we need anything that harms another creature. I wouldn't have seen the premonition if that were the case, because we would never sacrifice anything for any reason."
"You don't have to sacrifice an animal to get pig's blood. You could get that from pork chops at the grocery store," I said. "Maybe it is some sort of blood."
Darlene looked at me very seriously. "I hope it's not."
We sat silent for a minute, not sure of how to proceed. We had been talking about this all week, all searching for answers separately, and not getting any closer to finding out what the ingredient was. Darlene had even gone as far as contacting a college professor of the Latin language, and even he hadn't known what the word meant. In fact, he said he didn't believe it was a word from the Latin language.
"And you don't think there's any way around this ingredient?" I said, though I knew the answer already. We are going in circles.
"There are two very similar spells in the book," Darlene said as she flipped from one page to another, both with sticky notes poking from the pages, which for some reason looked humorous to me. "One is for going to this Barathrum and another one is to locate an object, both containing this mystery ingredient. I believe if you mix the spells a certain way and have the ingredient smeared against your skin, you will be able to go into this further world and land right by the person that the focusing object belongs to, in this case the strand of hair. When we find out what this other ingredient is, we are going to smear it on your chest, you will hold onto the cosmic energy, and say these words…" Darlene flattened a piece of lined paper with her handwriting on it, the writing being an incantation from the two spells that she'd put together.
"Ad abyssos de Barathrum, ego expectamus hanc mulierem, i accipere in tenebris, invenire hanc mulierem in Barathrum."
Without thinking, I was weaving the universal force within myself, and I absentmindedly twirled Liz's other hair around my forefinger. I repeated the words, practicing the pronunciation.
The moment I said the last word, my ears popped and I felt the air pressure change around me. I met eyes with Darlene, who looked surprised, and at the corner of my eye I could see Tansy making a similar expression. Almost as soon as I realized that they were feeling something too, I felt as if someone kicked me in the stomach and the air whooshed out of my lungs. Panic rose up in me and I wanted to scream. Next, my eyesight went and I was pushed into complete, utter darkness. I felt paralyzed, separated from my own physical body. The only things I could feel were the panic rising where my gut should have been and the sensation of being pulled at a thousand miles an hour by my aching lungs.
When I thought I might not be able to bear another second, the sensations slowed until everything seemed still. When my vision started to return, I blinked and tried to focus. I was standing right side up in a new place, and I wobbled on my suddenly weak legs. With my first deep breath of dry, hot air, I took in my surroundings. Everything in this world I saw was either in the shade of blood red or black shadow. Red buildings of all different styles and architecture surrounded me, each one more extravagant and ridiculous than the next, like palaces from foreign countries and lost wonders of the world. The dusty dirt road underneath my bare feet was red. The few people walking down the street wore different shades of red and black. Even I was red! I stared at my red-tinted hands for a moment, idly wondering where the hair had gone, before I realized I was standing in red lighting. When I looked up at the sun, if a sun was what it was, it shone bright in the blood-red sky like a crimson light bulb. It was the strangest sensation, appearing there—like stepping for the first time into a darkroom where photographs are developed, except on a much larger scale.
Noticing that other people were walking by, I took a few steps up the dirt road, trying to focus my eyes through the red thickness while trying to be inconspicuous. The street wasn't heavily populated, but the few people that were out didn't take a second glance at me, which was unexpected, because I looked very conspicuous in jean shorts, a tank top, and no shoes. They were dressed in long hooded cloaks with the hoods up over their heads, just glimpses of their faces showing. The faces I glanced at looked human and normal, besides a few of them being decorated with black designs that looked shocking, but somehow pretty in their placement. Tattoos, maybe? Though the people never glanced back at me, they seemed to make an effort to avoid getting too close to my path. I didn't know if they were demon or human, though I assumed they were human, but I avoided their paths as well.
I did feel someone's eyes on me though, their gaze boring into me and making the hair on the back of my neck stand. I glanced back and up at one of the buildings as I walked, and sure enough, two yellow eyes peered at me through an arched opening a few stories up. I didn't slow my pace but hunched slightly in on myself as I continued. As I turned back toward the path in front of me, I suddenly caught sight of a figure with black, swaying hair. If I hadn't had such a hard time focusing through the disorienting cloud of red, I would have noticed the girl with her hood brazenly draped over her shoulders immediately. I was relieved and amazed that the spell had worked and taken me straight to her, even without that secret ingredient! Who would have known?
But now she was getting away. Liz! I wanted to shout her name out, but the street was too strangely quiet. The only sounds I could hear were strange music playing far away, like a whining violin or guitar, and the shuffling of my feet in the sand. She was walking fast and I tried to quicken my pace to an almost run, hoping I wasn't going to draw any more unwanted attention to myself. I imagined a million eyes suddenly peering through windows above me, but I didn't dare look up to check.
I stifled a groan and slowed my pace as she walked straight into a large open building. As I got closer, the area became more congested and I realized it was an indoor marketplace. I took a deep breath, gathering my courage, and walked into the crowd of hooded cloaks. It was darker in this long indoor market, but still red, making it almost impossible for me to see. People were yelling at each other in English and at least one other language, which I was guessing was Latin.
"Lamb's blood! Get your blood of the innocent!" someone shouted, and it was the only thing in English that stuck out to me. I was tempted to look in the direction of the voice, but I trained my eyes on Liz to prevent myself from losing her. She stopped at a table with jewelry, all the pieces made from simple-looking metal strands holding small, smooth black stones of some kind. Or were they actually red stones? I couldn't tell.
She started struggling to communicate with the woman selling the jewelry, talking slowly and deliberately in another language. Without saying a word, I went to stand next to her, trying to get her attention without tipping off the other woman or anyone around me.
"Ah, sanguinem innocentem?" Liz was saying and pointing to a piece of jewelry when she turned her eyes toward me. She didn't have a drop of makeup on, but she could pull that look off better than anyone I knew. Her outfit looked like a monk's robe, but her dark hair and strikingly light-colored eyes were beautiful, even in the red lighting.
Her eyes suddenly widened. "Cara!" she said a little too loudly, and a few passersby glanced our way. I felt so self-conscious, being the only person in sight not wearing a robe. I got closer to her so we could whisper. The lady conveniently ignored us, shouting in Latin to the passersby to take a look at her product. "Oh my god, you're here! Who is your host?"
She took in what I was wearing, eyes getting larger, as I asked her, "What do you mean, 'host'?"
She grabbed my wrist a little too hard and without another word, she yanked me away from the table, taking me back the way we'd come. I didn't struggle, trusting that she knew better than me and relieved to be escaping the crowded marketplace.
"Cara, why aren't you wearing your blood robes? You should know only demons can go without blood robes," she hissed, glancing up to the tall buildings as if looking for eyes staring through the windows and arches. She put her arm around my shoulder, drawing me really close, maybe so we'd look like one person at a quick glance. Her cloak billowed around me, shielding me. I took a glance at her face and her eyes bulged, too much white visible.
"I don't have a robe," I replied. "Liz, I've come to take you back home."
"I don't want to go home," she said and I almost stopped, I was so surprised. Only her tight grip on me kept me walking.
"What do you mean, you don't want to go home?"
She stared back at me as we walked, our noses almost touching. It would have been uncomfortably close in different circumstances, but being where we were, it was comforting being so close to a human I was well-acquainted with.
"My former life was almost unlivable, Cara. I couldn't stand being alone before, but now I'm living a new, exciting life. My host is probably one of the best in the third city, and I'm one of the few human familiars that have gone outside at night."
I at least knew what a familiar was, thanks to Tansy. But former life? Third city? What was she talking about?
"What is a host?" I asked for the second time, deciding I'd ask one thing at a time.
"A host is a master of someone."
"So you're like a slave or a pet?" I hissed.
"Maybe some familiars are," she shrugged. "But I'm treated more like a favored servant."
"And you're okay with that?" I couldn't believe this. This didn't seem like the Liz I knew, who was the worst server at Angel Oak, who griped and complained almost every chance she got. How could this girl, of all people, enjoy being anyone's servant? I'd imagined I was going to have to save someone who was chained up and broken of spirit. Liz seemed cheerful as we walked down the street, if not a little concerned for me. It should have been the other way around!
"I have come to terms with it," she said. "Everything is so new and interesting. I'm not ready to leave."
"What about your parents? And your brother!"
She frowned, and our pace slowed. "Are they looking for me?" she asked quietly.
"Yes, you've been an official missing person for two weeks! Your brother came into the restaurant once when I was in, and the other waitresses have talked to your parents! They've put signs around town…" I let my words trail off as I watched her face. She looked a little sad, but not like my news really changed anything.
"Maybe I can have you deliver a note for me. I especially miss my little brother, Henry. It makes me sad that I might not ever see them again."
"I-I don't understand," I said, fumbling over my words, feeling at a loss.
"You don't understand, because you've never had a relationship and never been in love. Once you love something so much, everything and everyone else seem less important. You still love your family, but you can live without them," she said, her frown turning into a smile as she seemed to talk herself out of missing her family.
"You're in love?" I said too loudly, then lowered my voice, "Is it Caymn?"
"Caymnaburus?" she said, then laughed. "Oh god, no!" Then she couldn't seem to stop chuckling at the thought.
"Well, then who?" I asked, irritated that she was laughing at me.
"No one! I'm in love with this place. You must not have been here long at all if you don't know what I'm talking about. Everything is like taking drugs, giving into your greatest desires without regret in the morning. We have no reason for regret here! There are no consequences for your actions if you know the rules. I eat all I want and never gain weight. That's just one example."
"What, like you just don't get fat at all?" She was distracting me.
"There is a spell for everything. Our hosts don't want us to be fat. We are their servants, but to an extent they are ours and give us a lot of what we've always wanted. They don't want us whining and complaining when we both can have what we want. I am tired of resisting the things I want."
I was about to ask what it was that demons got out of their servants, because it must have been more than doing little errands, but suddenly we were walking through a door and the red thickness that clouded my vision waned. Due to either the troubling conversation or the red murkiness, I hadn't noticed where she had been taking me, but now she was shutting a door behind us and the red was forced out. She sighed loudly, obviously relieved.
"Oh my god, where are we?" I said, not sure if I should be relieved that we were off of the open streets or more scared that we could be near her master. A demon, for god's sake!
I noticed that she was much paler than before, most of her summer tan gone, but it didn't lessen her beauty. "Relax," she said, grabbing me by the shoulders and turning me away from the door and toward the room. A good way to describe the room's style was "gothic realm." There were no windows, no candles or lamps, but the room was somehow dimly illuminated. There were two black doors with intricate designs running through them, one that we had come from and one on the opposite side of the room. The design was a mix of modern and gothic, with everything in shades of grey, black, and some expertly placed silver here and there. It reminded me a little bit of the decorating style at Liz's Charleston house, but a little more gothic. "We are at my host's house. Like the couch? I actually picked out the color scheme," she said proudly, striding past me to run her hand along the black and grey couch.
"Your host is…" I was going to say, "Caymnaburus, right?" but the far door opened, the heavy door creaking on its hinges, stopping me short. I stared wide-eyed as Caymn walked through the door, gazing down at a large book in his hands. He had not touched the door; it had swung open for him.
"That was fast, Elizabeth. Were you able to find the…" He looked up and the moment he saw me, the book fell out of his open hand, tumbling to the ground. He looked gorgeous, even more than I remembered. His eyes weren't red or abnormal as before, but the most beautiful and astonishing shade of green. He was taller than I remembered and lean, not too skinny and not too muscle-y. He was wearing black fitted pants, a puffy white pirate-style shirt, and a green velvet coat with rich embroidered details that accentuated his broad shoulders and trim waist. It was a ridiculous outfit you might see on a runway in Paris or on a rich pirate. It should have been laughable, but he looked absolutely perfect. My heart jumped in my chest and I tried to chalk it up to fear or anger, but if I were honest, I felt neither of those things.
You've reached the halfway point of my book.
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