Page 26

So I stayed where I was, staring it down. For once, the creature didn't lash out at me. It watched me, bobbing its head, like it was waiting to see what I'd do. It seemed like the more physical it became, the more it could actually think.

Dammit, I cursed to myself. I was counting on this thing being stupid and blind with fury like before.

As it watched me, its eyes widened and then narrowed, moving over me.

.

.

like it was waiting for something to happen.

I assumed it was trying to throw me around like it had in our previous encounters, but this time nothing happened.

I remained rooted to my place, not willing to give up an inch of my ground.

Maybe the more physical it became, the less psychic power it had.

Or maybe I was wrong, and the only thing stopping it from crushing me was just the pure force of my will, my lack of fear.

Maybe that was what it took to defeat it—to face it head on, refusing to give into the fear that it bred.

Either way, I had no idea what to expect.

Tired of waiting, it lashed out, its magma?like claws slicing through the air towards me.

But being whole made it slower too.

I dodged to the side, and its talons just missed—cutting into the wall behind me instead, gouging deep into the already damaged drywall.

Though it was slower, it was still immensely powerful.

I feared what it would mean if those claws made contact with my soft flesh and bone.

It paused for a moment and flicked its many eyes around the room before settling back on me—to my horror, four more pairs burst into existence on its face, nestling next to the others.

Its mouth full of twisted, burning fangs split wide, stretching across the swirling mass of air, curving into a hideous grin like the Cheshire Cat's. It was happy, and there was a great, wrenching twist in my gut as I realized why.

I had made a fatal mistake; when I had dodged to the side, I had gone the wrong way. Now the Beast was between Luc and me... and the Beast knew what that meant.

It turned its massive head towards Luc's limp form and opened its massive mouth, ready to consume him and let me watch as it did.

"No!" I screamed.

My hands fumbled over the debris next to me, and I began to chuck whatever I could reach at the wavering form of the creature, hoping to distract it from its new objective.

Splinters of wood, chunks of metal, and a twisted half of my laptop connected with the back of what I assumed was its head.

It didn't even flinch.

I scraped the ground, desperate for something else to throw. My raw, burned hand closed around a small pile of salt that had fallen out of the ritual doll when I had been thrown against the wall. It made my burns sting, literally rubbing salt into my wounds.

An idea half-formed in my head; did the purifying effects of the salt in the spell carry over to the real world?

Hoping for something, any kind of reaction, I picked up a handful and threw it at the back of the Beast's head.

The salt hit dead-on, sizzling like drops of water thrown on a hot pan. The Beast screamed. It whipped its face back to me, expression no longer playful but twisted with a malice that shook me to my core. I had really pissed it off this time.

But I couldn't waste time being frightened. I grabbed whatever was left of the salt on the floor, ignoring the pain as it dug into my hand, and charged towards the Beast. All eight of its eyes widened in shock for a moment, but it quickly centred itself and roared in retaliation, warning me what it would mean if we were to come into contact.

It took all my courage to ignore its warning.

I used its gaping, screaming mouth to my advantage.

Pushing my arm inside, I threw the salt I had cupped in my hand down its burning throat.

It felt like I had shoved my arm into a scorching oven; the pain dug beneath my skin and into my bones, but I somehow managed to ignore it.

Pain was worth it if it meant we could survive.

The Beast retched and then wailed a banshee shriek like nothing I had ever heard. All of its eyes flew wide in fury and pain. Gagging, it threw out one last swipe of its massive paws.

I froze. I had gotten too close. I couldn't dodge.

I saw it move like it was in slow motion, its huge, fiery claws reaching for me.

Closing my eyes, I anticipated the crushing pain, but I felt nothing.

For a moment I feared I had misjudged my strength and it had killed me instantaneously, leaving me no time to even feel the sensation of death.

.

.

but then I heard it growl in frustration, and I opened my eyes.

The creature stumbled backwards, its mouth pouring thick bluish smoke. A black tarry substance dripped out the corners. It collapsed against the far wall—the wall that Lillian had blown a hole through, causing what was left of it to crumble and begin to burn.

"Rach... el..."

His voice was weak, but I could have heard it crystal clear anywhere. Luc was alive—and awake—if just barely. Gashes and burns patterned his body, and he was clutching a wound at his side that was bleeding profusely.

As I rushed over to him, I realized then he had used most of his remaining strength to provide some sort of shield for me, to protect me from the Beast's last strike.

"Luc!" I cried, falling to my knees beside him, desperate to help but not sure of where to start. "Stay still! We'll get you out of here!"

"N-no..." Luc stammered weakly. "We need to stop Lillian..."

Lillian... somehow I had blocked her out of my mind in my frenzy to save Luc. I glanced over my shoulder to see how Polly was faring.

With Lillian stripped of her powers, she and Polly were evenly matched.

But I saw a flash of silver, and I noticed that Lillian was brandishing an ornate knife.

Polly only had a splintered piece of wood she was carrying like a club.

Lillian was graceful as she sliced and stabbed through the air, aiming for her sister.

But Polly was practical.

.

.

and fast.

Lillian twirled and lunged, but Polly dodged out of the way, hitting her in the stomach and snatching for her hair.

But her hand closed on nothing as Lillian spun away just in time.

"You... need to finish... the spell..." Luc murmured. "You need to... help... Polly..."

"No! Don't move. You're hurt!"

"Then leave me... Help her..."

I hesitated, not wanting to leave him in this state, but he was right. I had to continue on. If we ran now, we would be throwing away our best chance to defeat Lillian.

"Don't worry," he said, seeing the apprehension on my face. "I'll protect you." He smiled slightly, in what I was sure he meant to be an encouraging way, but seeing the strain it took for him to make that small movement only made me worry more.

"I'm not worried about me," I snapped, but I grinned feebly back.

"I'll be fine. But don't be swayed by Lil—that thing. That isn't Polly's sister."

My eyes widened in horror. "What?"

Luc tried to speak but coughed instead, spitting up blood.

He wiped his mouth, then fixed his eyes on mine.

"I'm not entirely sure how it happened," he croaked. "But I am sure that's not her sister. Tell Polly and don't let her forget it." He gripped my wrist, trying to impress on me the importance of this information.

I nodded. I knew what I had to do. I leaned down to kiss him lightly on the mouth. Lingering for a moment, longer than I should have, I brushed my finger over his cheek, then gave him one last longing look before I got to my feet again.

Polly was still engaged in battle with her sister, or whoever—whatever—it was.

At some point, the doll had been thrown into the centre of the sacred circle, and its salt innards were scattered in a halo around it.

I had already lost some of the salt in my battle with the Beast; we couldn't afford to lose more. And there were other things to be done... The candles for the ceremony had to be lit, and the other materials required preparation so that it would all be ready when we needed it.

I crept over to the circle, hoping to escape Lillian's notice. Luckily, Lillian was more than occupied by her opponent, so I set to work. The Beast still lay in a heap in the corner, now smouldering rather than burning, ignorant to its surroundings.

I scooped what I could of the salt and shovelled it back into the clumsily hewn husk of the doll, ignoring the sting. I tightened the thread in the abdomen, leaving enough room for us to shove in a lock of hair or... maybe a chunk of flesh. I was willing to work with anything.

Once I had finished preparing the doll, I set upon lighting the rest of the candles. The ones that had been lit by Lillian's fire blast were shrinking fast—we were running out of time. I used them to light the rest of the circle, one by one.

There was a cry of pain, and my head snapped up from my work.

Lillian had landed a solid blow, grazing the exposed skin on Polly's neck. I stifled my own cry of shock, hoping that the wound wasn't deep enough to be fatal.

Lillian snarled gleefully, and in the moment of her triumph and lull in the battle, she noticed the change in her surroundings for the first time.

Her gaze traced from the pathetic form of the defeated Beast in the corner to my work on the ring of candles.

Lillian's glee turned to malice. She raised her arm to strike out at me—someone who wasn't immune to her dark powers.

But Polly wasn't done yet; blood poured down her front from the wound in her neck but the fire in her remained. She flipped the club around in her hand, arming herself with the splintered point, and swung it towards her sister's unguarded abdomen.

Lillian choked as the point pierced her dull flesh. Strange inky blood gushed out from the wound. The look on her face changed. Suddenly her eyes filled with tears, and she sobbed.

"Polly... How could you?" Lillian sputtered.

Immediately, Polly's face fell, like she believed she had actually just grievously injured her beloved sister... not the thing pretending to be her.

"Polly!" I screamed. "Don't let her trick you! That's not your sister! That's the thing that killed your sister!"

"No, Polly, don't listen to her..." Lillian coughed. "Something is possessing me... you need to help me, Polly. Please help me!"

Polly's hands began to shake, and her grip loosened on the makeshift club. Her eyes flitted back and forth, tracing the features of her sister's face, trying to find the truth. A new fear swelled up in me. The key made Polly immune to physical attacks, but did protect her from mental ones?

"Lilly..." Polly whispered. "Is that really you?"

"Of course..." Lillian choked up blood, the same inky red that streamed from her stomach. "Don't you know your own sister?

"Oh, God... N-no!" Polly stammered. "What have I done?!"

Her sister wavered on the spot as Polly retracted the spike from Lillian's gut. Polly reached out to and caught her just in time, stumbling under her weight. Lillian looked so frail and delicate in her sister's arms.

What if she's telling the truth? I wondered, now doubting what Luc told me as I looked Lillian over; she seemed so human now. What if she was just possessed?

"Polly, no!" Luc cried.

"Gotcha!" Lillian sang, raising her silvery knife. She plunged it into her sister's back.

Polly screamed and threw her sister to the ground. She scrambled for the spear that lay nearby and turned back to Lillian, impaling her again in retaliation. Lillian hissed and howled, writhing beneath the stake, spewing the same black tar that came from the Beast.

Polly pushed her away and turned towards me, the colour quickly draining from her face as she lost blood.

"I can't believe I fell for that..." she groaned, a trickle of blood escaping from her lips. "A-Are you ready?"

"Yes!"

"Then catch!" She snapped off a shard of wood from the bloody tip and tossed it into my waiting hands, just before she collapsed to her knees, clutching her neck.

I shoved it inside the little doll and grabbed the ribbon that lay beside it.

I began to weave it around the form as quickly as I could, scanning the page of the book and muttering the incantation under my breath.

Lillian spat out a mouthful of sticky black and shrieked.

She shoved her sister aside and barrelled down on me.

Her eyes wild and burning, hair around her head in a tangled glow, her face twisted with hatred, she may have looked more human than the Beast, but she was infinitely more terrifying.

I finished the incantation just as she raised her knife.

I began to blow out all the candles, trying to finish before she could make contact.

"Allow me," a raspy voice came from across the room. Luc had propped himself up on his elbows, and his face was drenched with sweat from the exertion, but his look was determined.

He called out words I didn't understand, and a great rush of wind blew through the apartment. All the candles were extinguished in one fell swoop.

Silence.

My head snapped up, and I saw Lillian frozen above me, her arm still raised and ready to strike.

.

.

But her eyes were wide and dull, unseeing.

Then came a great howl, like wind during a tornado, and she gave a great inhale, sucking all the air out of the room.

She gave one last scream, and her body split open, dark sticky lines tracing over her naked body.

Beneath the human skin that had once belonged to Polly's beloved sister was a crude form made out of sticky-looking black tar. The pieces of her slid apart with a repulsive wet gurgle, splattering onto the floor.

There was a moment of horrified silence before the half-puddle, half-mound simply caught fire and began to burn away. The fire consumed the mass in record time, leaving only the black scar of a burn on what remained of the hardwood floor.

The Beast was gone as quickly as its master, the fire it was made of extinguishing and disappearing like it had been doused in water. For the first time in weeks, we were alone... And safe.

"Polly...?" I moaned. I felt numb, dumbfounded by what had actually taken place. We had actually managed to kill Lillian... or whatever it was that had been inhabiting Lillian's body.

"I'm... alive..." her voice came, muffled by the floor as she lay face down. "Barely..."

I heard a scuffle of movement and turned to see Luc dragging himself along the marred floor, wincing at every movement.

"We did it," he muttered, rolling onto his back when he got close enough. "It's done. It's actually done."

"It is, isn't it?" I mumbled, collapsing to the floor myself. A sudden wave of exhaustion crashed over me.

A piercing squeal split through the silence, and there was the sound of a great shifting. The ceiling above gave a great heave and chunks of drywall and dust rained down on us.

"Goddammit," I said. My tone was disinterested, I felt myself drifting away. "This place is going to collapse, isn't it?"

"Fuck," Polly cursed, sounding like she felt the same. "If it's not one thing..."

"I think I have just enough..." Luc muttered, his voice trailing off.

But I felt my eyes close; I no longer had the strength to keep them open.

I didn't care if I had fought for my life, only to die now. I just wished it had all been a dream, that I was actually snuggled in Luc's bed, wrapped in his arms.

.

.

?

After my eyes adjusted to the brightness, I glanced around the room; it had green walls, and the furniture was sparse and institutional. On one side was a wall of white curtain and on the other was a wall with a simple door that led out into a hall.

This time, I actually was in the hospital.

Polly was sitting in a worn chair at my bedside. She looked up from the magazine she had been reading and smiled when she saw me staring at her.

"You're awake! About time. What the hell took you so long?"

"I—"

"I was the one who fought that thing pretending to be my sister and got stabbed, like, eight hundred times," she said, cutting me off. She huffed and crossed her arms, but there was light in her eyes again.

"How long have I been out?" I asked.

"A couple of weeks."

I leapt forward in bed, and my body protested. It wasn't in pain, but it certainly was stiff from lying still for so long.

Polly stood and reached over me, pushing the button attached to my bed to summon the nurse. "How are you feeling?"

I sat in silence for a moment, trying to get a feel for my body. There was no pain, no lingering ache. But I definitely felt different. Maybe because I knew I no longer had to run, and the absence of fear felt strange. I reached to scratch my arm, and my fingers made contact with something odd.

My arm was marbled with puckered skin that ran over it in little rivers of raised flesh. A freshly healed burn.

It started coming back to me in chunks. The blast of fire from Lillian's attack... Shoving my hand down the Beast's throat. It all seemed so distant and impossible, but my marred arm proved it had all been far too real.

"Yeah, he couldn't get rid of that," Polly said, watching my gaze.

"He...? Oh, Luc!" I shouted, as the most important part returned to me. "Is he okay?"

"Of course he is! He was the first one to get out of the hospital, while he left us here like suckers."

"What are you telling her now, Polly?"

Luc was leaning against the doorframe, smiling ear-to-ear, carrying two bunches of flowers—one overflowing with lilies and the other a small package of yellow daisies.

He looked like he had never seen action; his skin was smooth, unscarred, and he looked like he finally had gotten some sleep.

My heart skipped a beat just looking at him.

"She was just telling me how you've never been better while I've been lying in a hospital bed, scarred and clinging to life." I stuck my lip out and pretended to pout.

His smile faltered a little—poor, sensitive thing that he was—as he walked in, sidling up to the bed. He pulled me close to him and kissed me lightly, then handed me the bouquet of lilies. "Did you just wake up?"

"Yeah," I said, leaning back. "Good timing. It's like you're psychic or something."

He chuckled. "Do you want anything?"

I paused; my stomach growled. "Chocolate pudding?"

Polly snorted. "You wake up from a near-death experience and you want pudding? I asked for scotch!"

Torn away from our little moment, I turned to Polly and narrowed my eyes. "Near death? You guys were way more injured than I was! Actually... how did we even get here? The last thing I remember was the building about to collapse..."

"I—" Luc's voice fell to a whisper, and he glanced around the room "—teleported us out onto the street, and I healed us as much as I could before the Commoners arrived." He nodded to a nurse who passed by the door. "And while I was in the hospital, I used my powers to accelerate my healing... not too much at once though, so they didn't get suspicious. But it was still the fastest recovery they had ever seen," he finished with a wink.

"What was the delay in helping me?" I said, pretending to be hurt.

He just raised an eyebrow at me. "There was no delay. It was easier for me to heal myself first. I was confined to a bed for a few days, so I couldn't come visit, but when I got out I came and helped you guys too."

"Why do you think I'm sitting here instead of lying in the bed next to you?" Polly said, motioning towards the curtain behind her.

"Then why was I out for so long?"

Luc shrugged, and he looked slightly bothered. "You've been unconscious since we were teleported onto the street. I did everything I could, but you wouldn't come to. I knew you weren't in any mortal danger, so I figured you'd just wake up when you were ready."

"Ready?"

"Magic that dark affects people in strange ways."

I felt the blood drain from my face. "I'm not still cursed, am I?"

"What? No!" Luc said, finally flustered. "It just... leaves a mark. People and places that have come in contact with that sort of stuff are forever changed."

Places... My mind shifted gears, wondering about the place where our battle went down. "What happened to the apartments?" I asked. When the emergency services had arrived—I assumed that was what he meant by 'Commoners'—I couldn't bear to think of the questions they would've asked.

"Oh don't worry," Polly interjected, smirking. "He burnt the whole building down."

"You burnt it down?" I cried, staring aghast at Luc.

"Not so loud!" Luc hissed, shooting a careful glance at Polly. He released me and wandered around my bed, over to Polly. He handed her the small bunch of daisies, shaking them at her as a warning. She snatched them away, narrowing her eyes, but the tension and hatred between them was absent.

He sat back down on the edge of my bed. "I had to destroy the evidence."

I scowled, my brow creasing. Even though I knew that nothing from my apartment could have been salvaged—even before the battle with the Beast—it was sad to know that I had absolutely nothing to my name. And no place to live. Again.

"So now what?" I asked, trying to keep the defeat from my voice.

"You just heal," he said, smiling at me. "And I'll come by every day to, uhm, speed up the process,"

"No, I mean after that... Where are you staying?"

Luc shot a pointed look at Polly, who just raised an eyebrow in response. "What, you want me to tell her? Am I actually allowed to talk now?"

Luc just rolled his eyes, still smiling.

"Fine," Polly continued, glaring at Luc out of the corner of her eye. "He's been staying at my house. I plan to have—or, ask? I guess—you both to move in."

I gaped at her. Sure, the bond Polly and I shared was stronger now than ever, but I never expected her to want to be housemates. Especially with Luc.

"Polly, w-why?" I stammered in shock.

"Because," Polly said, and her eyes softened. "I have this big, old house and no one to live in it but me. I had been keeping it a certain way ever since... Well, I realize now that I don't need to keep it for her anymore. I want to share it now, make new memories there. Start fresh."

I smiled at her, nodding.

I couldn't argue with that logic. I thought back to my first day in the apartment, standing by Mrs. Malik—or had it been Lillian all along?—looking for the solace I so desperately craved. I had been looking for a new beginning then. While that hadn't exactly turned out well, I now had a second chance to do it over again.

And a fresh start was exactly what I needed.