Chapter Seventeen
Will Slate slowly lowered his left hand and turned around. The clawing in his head had come to an abrupt halt, and its accompanying searing pain along with it. Cain had been trying to get in, get control of his body. He wanted to talk to Helena, and apparently Will was the only way he could do it.
The First Vampire had used too much of his strength projecting himself into their realm, and what was left was without voice. But Will refused to give him control. So Cain had become desperate.
He’d whispered things to Will, promises. And then he’d made threats, things Will couldn’t bear to think about. And at last, he’d simply begun torturing him, sending agony sizzling along the insides of his skull.
Will knew it wasn’t real. Without the ability to control his physical form, Cain couldn’t actually bring him harm either. But pain was a mental game, and Cain was very good at those.
Now it was over abruptly and blessedly, and Will had no idea how. He took a moment to just breathe, and heard each ragged breath enter and exit his lungs. Slowly, he turned in place, taking in the change in their surroundings.
“What… the….” Liam whispered behind him.
Will glanced over his shoulder at his cousin. Liam was wide-eyed, just as he was.
Time had stopped. There was no other way to describe it. There were motes of dust in the air, thrown there by the blast in the road. But normally they would coast away or float to and fro and land unnoticed. Now they hung in place, frozen between two moments that were somehow never connected.
The dark figures who had appeared in front of them and behind the Shelby on the road were unnaturally stationary, seemingly held hostage by time’s broken stopwatch. And in front of Will, where the blue-eyed shadow had appeared, there was now nothing but darkness. Deep. Un-telling.
Will had no idea what Cain had been planning to do but could only assume he’d wanted to do exactly what the Slate cousins had feared: threaten Helena. Will supposed that was what the monsters were there for, and that was why Cain had projected himself into their realm. He wanted it to be as scary as possible so Helena would feel she had little choice but to acquiesce.
But whatever he’d planned, something made him recoil, something made him return to the realm where he was held captive. And it had happened when Helena spoke the word, “Stop.”
All of this, Will absorbed and concluded in the quick few seconds before he straightened and turned back around to find Helena rushing to the driver’s side door of the Shelby. “Get in now,” she commanded. “You have to trust me, and we don’t have much time.”
Her beautiful features were pinched as if with pain, or intense concentration at the very least. She opened her door and looked up at him with luminous maroon eyes, but he was already moving, damn well determined to claim shotgun this time before his cousin.
Liam and Darryl were of the same minds, and all three of them squeezed into the seats of the Shelby just as Helena started up the engine and rammed the car into reverse. The doors were slammed shut right before she draped her arm over the seat, looked over her shoulder, and floored the gas. She peeled away from the hole and the monsters who had made it, swerving expertly around the lot who had come up behind them.
As they passed the frozen figures by, Will took a head count. Another ten. That made eighteen monsters total. Three sixes. He almost smiled at the analogy and wondered whether Cain had done it on purpose.
Probably.
When she’d gone a good fifty feet, she stopped the car, put it back in first gear, and turned them around on a dime, heading back down the highway the direction they’d come.
“Hang on,” she said next. “This one won’t be as smooth.” Will found himself doing what his cousin had done when they were invisible, grabbing the “Oh shit” bar and clenching it in a tight fist. But his eyes were on Helena. She capably moved the car into second and third, one right after the other. There, she kicked up the rpm’s, and before shifting into fourth she reached out toward the windshield as if trying to grasp something on the road in front of them. Just like before.
Will held his breath. The car jerked violently, and its four passengers lurched forward. Metal cried out as it was literally twisted by impossible physics. The engine whined. Helena made a desperate sound, one that whittled at Will’s heart. The road in front of them stretched out like before, its yellow and white lines lengthening, its ending expanding, the horizon disappearing somewhere like an unattainable pinpoint destination.
For the second time that night, Will’s eyes were treated to a blinding flash. He shut them out of reflex, but opened them a split second later, when the car lurched once more and tires squealed.
The road now before them was different but familiar, and Will knew at once that they were somewhere in the south. Thick foliage on either side of the road, swamp between the trees, Spanish moss, and heavy cracks in the two-lane road made him think Louisiana. Headlights in the distance signaled a faintly traveled highway and an oncoming car. He couldn’t help but wonder whether Helena had known specifically where to set the car down so it wouldn’t collide with another vehicle.
He looked over at her again to find her running a hand through her shining thick hair. It fell in layered waves around her, framing her face as if he needed any more reason to stare at her. But her eyes were hard-trained on the road, and her lips were pressed tight. “Are you okay?” he asked her softly. Somehow she had not only taken the car and its passengers through a portal to some deserted road in the southwest, she’d then stopped time and teleported everyone back through it a second time. And he knew it had taken a toll on her.
Helena didn’t answer and she didn’t look up. Instead, she carefully pulled the car over to the road’s shoulder, left it in neutral, locked in the emergency brake, and flipped on the hazards. Shakily, she turned to him, glanced at Liam, and finally at Darryl. “Can any of you boys handle a stick? Someone else has to drive,” she said softly. Her voice quaked ever so slightly, ringing alarm bells in Will’s head. He was hearing a lot of things in his head lately. “I’ll direct you to the nearest bar. I need a drink.”
“Let me out,” Liam told Will. He had leaned forward and popped open the door beside Will so fast, it was like his seat had caught on fire. A stunning woman had just asked him to take the wheel of a pristine classic muscle car, and drive her to a bar. By Will’s way of thinking, that one moment summed up everything Liam loved in life.
But Will was still irritated by the speed of his cousin’s reaction – for two seconds – before Darryl smoothly said, “I call shotgun,” in his wicked English accent. He winked at Will.
And Will realized he was going to be alone in the backseat with Helena. And she wasn’t feeling well. And again, they were headed to a bar.
Helena and Will climbed out of the car, allowing the other two out as well. A wave of humidity washed over Will, confirming his assumption that they were in the south. The car that had been coming in the distance finally passed by, and he took note of the license plate. Louisiana. He was right.
Will passed Liam as the older cousin made his way to the driver’s side. When their bodies brushed, Liam handed him something. Will glanced down to find himself holding the potion Darryl had created for the second part of the spell.
He looked up. Liam gave him a meaningful look and a brief nod. The look said, the job is yours now. Put this in her drink. Kiss her. Make this happen.
Will slipped the potion into the pocket of his leather jacket and climbed into the backseat. “Darryl, move your seat up,” he said. The warlock adjusted the front seat to give Will more leg room, and then suddenly Helena was sliding into the back beside Will. The scent of shampoo and soap and sweat teased his senses. She was so close he could feel the warmth of her body. She was ethereal in outline, like a dream he hadn’t quite awoken from.
He swallowed hard as Liam put the car into gear and pulled it off the shoulder of the road.