Chapter 17
Alyssa
After spending a whole day with Shay, I feel terrible for what Mom did to her over a guy—a guy she didn't even like all that much. Sheesh.
"So—are you okay?" she asks, smiling tightly. "No urges?"
She's talking about blood. Apparently my creature goddess craves blood. Gross. As if I don't have enough problems. Fortunately, that part of my fate hasn't come to haunt me. Yet—I don't think.
"No urges. I'm fine. I'm curious as to why I haven't flipped out in a while. I almost wish I would. I could save Kane if I totally lost it."
Well, I could have the power to save Kane. I doubt I could make my bitch half go there and handle business, considering I never have any recollection of what happens after I reach a certain point.
"I don't know. I've called a friend to come over. She's a hexer. She's old and wise—
been around since the days of Freya. She'll have some answers—hopefully."
"Hexer?" I squeak. I'm not too keen on that.
"She's one of the good guys, Alyssa. She learned a long time ago to use her curses as gifts in disguise. She's a sponge, and she's had many centuries to absorb information. Information we'll need."
A smoky haze, different from that of a dark angel's, fills the room, announcing a new presence. The Hexer is here.
With a clichéd gypsy scarf wrapped around her head, a long-layered skirt full of vibrant colors, and a flowing white blouse that is draping off her deceptively-young shoulders, she makes her way toward us with the face of a twenty-year-old and the jaded eyes of the ancient.
"Shay," she purrs, making me shiver. Hexers always freak me out.
Inwardly, I roll my eyes at myself. I'm some crazy bitch beast and I'm freaked out by a hexer.
She finally lets her emerald greens fall on me, and they widen in surprise as she pales. Do I have on a scary face right now or something?
"It's her," she croaks, stumbling backwards. "You found her."
Shay rolls her eyes at the dramatic hexer, and Chaz comes to stand a little closer to me. Thankfully, hexers have no power if a duster interferes.
"I've known where she was for years, but I couldn't tell anyone. Stop acting terrified and help us figure out what the hell is going on," Shay mutters, seeming annoyed.
The hexer dressed as a gypsy slowly tries to steel herself, seeming either awestruck or horrified—I'm not sure which. She clears her throat, moves her hands down her dress as though she's smoothing wrinkles, and then sits down when her legs refuse to offer her support.
"The night stalker? Is he here?" she asks, piquing my interest. How does she know about Kane if she didn't know about me until right now.
"You know about Kane? How?" I prompt, leaning forward.
"Dark ones run with dark ones, and you have the darkness and the light burning in your soul—two sides of the same coin. And the dark user? Is he with you?"
How does she know so much and so little about me at the same time? And she didn't answer my question.
"Neither are with me. Kane was sent to prison, and I'm—well, Gage and I need to stay away from each other. How do you know about them?"
She takes a weary breath, seeming uncertain for a moment, but then she finally exhales, releasing enough anxiety to almost be tangible.
"Because long ago, I hexed your night stalker."
I'm stunned, really. This bitch is the one?
My chair scrapes across the floor as I jump up, but Chaz's strong arms wrap around me, restraining me. Bastard!
"I'm only giving you one warning, Chaz. Let me the fuck go!"
"I had a reason," the hexer bitch says quickly. "I didn't curse him—I saved him."
My struggling slows as her words float to me, barely sinking in past my blanket of fury. Finally, I stop fighting and sit back down, allowing her a small window to explain.
"Elaborate," I hiss.
"If Castine had known what he really was, what he would have become, then he would have never gotten away from her. She would have tethered him to her until she suffocated him. I saved his life by cursing his gifts, keeping him from exposing his true being."
If she thinks she's explaining, she's sadly mistaken. She's only confusing me more with each rambled line of nonsense.
Shay and Chaz look just as perplexed as I am. Thank God. Sometimes, I feel stupid for not understanding the shit in our world.
"What do you mean? What's his true being? Bitten fey can only be what they are. Mortals destined for immortality cannot become bitten fey," Chaz says, and I nod, because I have nothing better to add.
A breath expels from her with a hazy fog, and settling in is an image of Kane from long ago. I gasp at the beauty he was even then.
"This is your night stalker. Yes?" she asks.
Words evade me, so I nod in response—again.
"You're right. Mortals destined for immortality cannot be changed into bitten fey—most of the time."
My head snaps up, just as Shay's and Chaz's does. "What do you mean?" Shay asks, urging this procrastinating hexer to quit drawing out the suspense that seems to be materializing and strangling me.
"A creature like she is—they can be bitten. Changed. And when their time is ripe, their true being will emerge."
It takes me longer than the others to understand, because what she's saying makes no sense—until it makes perfect sense.
"Kane's like me?" I almost whisper, but the color has already drained from Shay and Chaz who are forced to stagger to a seat.
"He can't be like me. He would have had some powers before he was ever bitten."
"He's as powerful as you, but he is like you. You are Freya's descendent. You are the most powerful of us all—a goddess by descent, by right, and by birth.
"Castine has spent centuries trying to recreate the specimen Kane is. She assumed her amulet gave him the same powers it gave her. It had nothing to do with it. But had she not bitten him, he would have died when he turned.
"The mind is our strongest tool and our weakest handicap. Your night stalker was raised as a human. Therefore, he thought like a human. Humans rationalize the irrational. So every time he did something, such as use the witch powers most creatures like you have in the beginning, he wrote it off as something perfectly explainable. He wouldn't have been ready for the change, since he never practiced his gifts. The same bite that condemned him, saved him.
"He wasn't ready to control the shifting side of his powers, and they would have revealed his true identity to the oblivious vampiress. So I cursed him, kept him from showing her the hidden secrets he didn't know he kept. Only some of his abilities crept out, but his eyes kept his secret, his body never shifted, and his full powers never came—but they will. They will very soon.
"Once she's dead, my curse will be broken. He'll embody the creatures better than you because he has journeyed through our world for longer, and he has learned to deal with the demons that haunt his mind. You—you still need help, and you will for a while."
I swallow hard, still trying to soak it all in. It's not possible. Does he—
"So there's no way he knew this? Even now?" Chaz asks, voicing the question I was only brave enough to ask in my mind.
"No. He never knew. His real family was slaughtered centuries ago when our world hunted the creatures. He was born from a warlock and witch, but his father came from a creature goddess. Someone learned of his origins, and the hunt began because people believed he'd turn into one as well. Fools.
"Kane wasn't supposed to exist. His mother saved him by abandoning him as an infant. His mortal parents never told him about how he came to be their son. But he knows now. By now he's met the child."
"Stop speaking in riddles," Chaz scolds.
Her eyes change into glowing orbs of dark gray, and I shiver as it takes me off guard. It's not like the others. Her irises aren't the only things to change; everything in her eye socket is the same gray.
"I saw it. Years and years ago. Centuries in fact. I can't summon a vision, but I can see one already seen. She's the gate keeper and a visionary. They have her. That's what they've been waiting on all these years—one who is connected to all the planes. She sees us for who we are without any guiding auras or eyes. She sees us to our soul. She can open any plane, no matter how locked the gate is. She's with him. Now. I've seen it before. Two lost souls seeking rescue from the prison that holds them."
She sucks in a sharp breath as her eyes fade down to normal. My whole body is shivering right now.
"Who is trying to open the planes? What planes are they trying to open?" Chaz asks quickly, rushing the words out into almost a ranted ramble.
"I wish I knew. The visions only hold so much information before they shut down. I haven't had one in over a century."
I think the air has gotten too thick to breathe. Kane is like me. Just like me—
"It's about Kane," I whisper, tearing up as relief and angst fill me at once.
"What's about Kane?" Chaz asks, bemused.
"The prophecy. It was never about Gage. Everyone is so fucking stupid. It even said I'd be drawn to my dark lover—that I'd gravitate toward him until at last we met. I never gravitated toward Gage. He found me. Kane and I ran into each other. I was drawn to Pine Shore. I moved there after he did. It's about Kane."
I whimper, sob, and hiccup all at once, as uncontrollable tears of pain, joy, and madness drip without mercy. She seems unaffected by my laughter that mingles with sobs as I celebrate and panic at the same time.
"This," she says, leaning over and taking my wrist in her hand, motioning to Castine's faded locator mark. My hysteria simmers down as I stare at it. "It won't work for her again. Once you killed the spirit, your power grew too strong for Castine to contend with. You opened yourself up that night by giving in to the power you truly held. Now this mark will only work if you're very, very close to her. She'll never find you otherwise."
I breathe out in relief.
"Why did you mention the dark user?" Chaz asks.
"Because," she says, smiling sadly, "he destroys their love in my vision. He's tied her to a spell, one which is powerful—"
"Been there, made it through, now I have to go save Kane. How do I break into the prison?"