“Well, that’s very New Age of you.” Alcroft rolled his eyes. “Everyone is bound to someone in a relationship. It’s where two become one and all that bullshit. Haven’t you heard of a wedding ceremony?”
“It’s a partnership, not losing yourself in someone else or in your relationship.” It had taken him a hundred years to recognize that, to understand the seemingly subtle difference. Regan didn’t want to have Felix or to own him or to change him, but she wanted his companionship, plain and simple. He wanted the same.
“I have partners in the law firm. I want a wife that belongs to me. And I can take her, own her, use her, and throw her away.” Alcroft stepped into the circle. “And you can’t do anything about it.”
Felix moved, hitting Alcroft in the gut with his fist to catch him off guard. As the demon doubled over with an expulsion of air from his lungs, Felix chanted, adrenaline giving him the strength as he moved around Alcroft, binding him to the circle.
But the demon reacted quickly, levitating off the ground several feet. Felix grabbed his leg and landed another punch on his kneecap, which earned him a howl of pain from Alcroft and a kick in his own thigh. Felix ignored the pain from the blow and continued chanting, words so ancient that he didn’t even know their meaning. The words of his mother, of the priests and priestesses of his childhood, of all the practitioners who had passed from this life to the next and who united with him to fight the evil.
He believed in them, in himself, in Regan. “I call on the power of Madame Erzulih, all the mysteries, and all the Saints,” he said, pulling a vial from his pocket and tossing alcohol over Alcroft’s legs and stomach.
Alcroft hissed. “You’re an idiot. This won’t work.”
Yet he was clearly fighting to stay afloat, his amber eyes glowing in the dusky courtyard. Felix hit him in the kidney with every ounce of strength he had, and Alcroft dropped to the ground.
“I vanquish you back to Hell,” Felix said, picturing steel cords wrapping around Alcroft’s hands and feet.
As Felix pulled a knife out of his pocket, Alcroft writhed around on the ground, his hands and feet bound by invisible restraints. Turn the magic back onto the magician. If Alcroft could bind Felix, he could turn it back and bind him.
Turning the trick back, as his mother would have said.
Felix pictured his mother’s smile, her gentle demeanor, as he pulled the knife out of his pocket. He silently thanked her before slashing the knife across his wrist. The pain had him gritting his teeth, but he braced himself against it and squeezed his fist open and closed. Standing over Alcroft, he let his blood drip down onto him.
Alcroft’s eyes flashed with anger, and maybe fear. “If I go back, you’ll go with me.”
“I know,” Felix said calmly, resigned to the inevitable. It was time for him to die. He had lived long enough to no purpose, and he would die to save Regan. To release Camille from her torment.
He knelt to his knees and slashed open his other wrist, the blood flowing wet and warm in the humid evening air.
Alcroft lay on his back, breathing hard, struggling against the invisible bonds. “She’ll think you abandoned her, you know,” he said, the smirk still on his face despite the circumstances. “She’ll hate you.”
His arrogance irritated Felix, so he just ignored him, watching his blood drip down onto Alcroft’s shirt. His head was starting to swim. But the wound on his left wrist was coagulating, so he sliced a fresh one right below it, the sting of the pain less of a shock this time, more of a heady triumphant feeling that this would be over.
“She’ll move on, get married, have children, live a happy life hating you, and you’ll be rotting with me in Hell.”
Felix laughed softly. “That’s what you don’t understand. What you’re incapable of understanding because you’re so truly selfish.” His mouth was hot, and his hands were starting to feel numb, but he kept his focus, on Alcroft, on the binding, on the request for vanquishment. “That is what I want, Regan to be happy. I would do anything to make that possible.”
Right then they both heard laughter from the balcony.
Regan.
Felix snapped his head up to see, the movement making him dizzy.
And wished he hadn’t.
Regan’s hand was shaking as she put the pen to the yellowed paper, right below Camille’s last entry. She didn’t know what had happened that fateful night, Felix had never had a chance to tell her, but she could guess.
And change the result.Staying in the middle of the bed, a wary eye on the snake, Regan wished she had kept a diary at some point. She had no idea what to write.
Felix arrived, she scrawled. He broughta snake.
She stared at her wobbly handwriting. Now what? She needed to get into Camille’s head, Camille’s voice.
He played the drum and I danced. Dancing is a delight. Here, at home, I can let my hair downand dance the way I cannot in the ballroom.
That was better. Regan stared at the French doors. What had drawn Camille to them?
We drank wine and made love by candlelight.
That didn’t sound right, it was too generic for Camille, but Regan had no desire to go into details of their sex, no matter how long ago it was, and she had to assume they’d already consummated their relationship by that point.
Then we stepped out onto the balcony with the snake. My parents were there to meet me, my sisters with arms wide open, smiles on their lovely faces. I’ve missed them so terribly and they’ve missed me.
Regan paused, pen on the paper. She could feel it. She could feel the warm breeze, feel the nakedness of her own flesh, feel the hint of laughter washing in like an ocean wave, smell the heavy floral perfume of Camille’s mother. Her mother.
The words came without thought, her handwriting slanting and scrolling and beautiful.
I died, but they walked me across the divide between this world and the next, and together we leave the rocky tempest of mortal life behind and dwell forever together in the calm ofpeace ...
Regan dropped the pen down. The drums were louder. She had to dance.
The snake no longer scared her. With the journal in hand, she stepped onto the area rug in the middle of the room, in front of the open doors, and moved her hips to the rhythmic beat of the nonexistent drums. The candlelight cast shadows around the room and the snake glided toward her.
Regan ignored him. She wasn’t ready for him. Walking to the chest of drawers, she slid the journal back into its secret compartment, and closed it firmly shut. She drank the wine that had appeared out of nowhere, the red liquid warming her as it slid down her throat.