"Ugh!" she said, releasing one of my arms as she instinctively swiped at her face. I jerked myself out of her grip and shifted in the air as I fell, using the force of my body - for once, I was glad I had some heft to me - to hurl myself toward the flaming edge of the circle. I hit it, breaking the circle with a skid as I hurtled into a world of hurt, and the fire went out instantly. I heard another thud after my own body fell; I figured it was Davina, and gained some comfort from the sound.
"You stupid bitch!" she rasped, and when I looked up, I saw her, clawing the ground, pulling herself toward me like some demented zombie from a bad fifties' pulp cover. I took a deep breath and clawed as well, heading toward the gurgling brook. I managed to crawl across it, the coldness from the water shooting sharp ice picks of pain through me. Finally, after what seemed like years, I made it to the other side and turned to see her, on her stomach, stopped at the moving water, shooting me the most vile look I'd ever received in my life. Lacking the strength to speak, I flipped her off and then fell back onto the ground with a thud.
I dipped into darkness then for a bit, and when I came to I was breathing, albeit with a lot of pain, my entire body seeming to protest every breath, every heartbeat, by shooting sharp shards of hurt through every nerve. I lay back on the ground, my chest arching as I gasped for air, and when I opened my eyes I could see vague wisps of yellow light drifting back into me. I followed the trails of light to their source, Davina's brightly dressed form splayed on the ground at the opposite side of the circle. After a moment, the light dissipated, and the world was silent and dark around us as we both breathed, at first loudly and with effort, and eventually slower, and calmer.
What the hell was that? I thought, lacking the strength to speak out loud.
You screwed up, was what came back, and although I knew I had felt the words instead of heard them, I also knew they hadn't come from me. Telepathy, however, was not the strangest thing that had happened to me lately, so I went with it. I moved my head a bit, trying to get a better look at Davina. She stared back at me, her eyes gleaming in futile fury.
If you think this was bad, Davina's voice said in my head, just wait until I recover and come for you again. You will wish you'd died tonight. Just wait.
"Just you wait, 'Enry 'Iggins, just you wait," I sang in a scratchy whisper through my burned throat. Then I laughed a bit, which sent pain radiating from my lungs to my toes, and my eyes filled with tears.
Ow.
"That's right, baby," Davina said, out loud this time.
I closed my eyes and thought, Bring it on, bitch.
"Liv!" A man's voice echoed through the woods, familiar, but I couldn't place it. I could hear hard footsteps racing through the brush. I stayed on the ground, thinking, Right here! but was unable to say anything. Singing to Davina had used up what little strength I'd had left.
"Goddamnit, where the hell are you?" He was frightened, whoever he was.
I opened my eyes. It was still dark, and cold, but there was a hint of the coming dawn on the horizon. I must have passed out, for a couple of hours at least. I turned my head, which throbbed in response, and looked for Davina. She was gone, as was her backpack. As far as I could tell, all evidence of her ever having been there was gone. I closed my eyes and tried to make sense of it. She'd had the strength to get up and walk away, and she hadn't killed me?
"Liv!"
Tobias. I recognized his voice, and the relief of hearing it washed over me. I was going to die, sure, but at least I'd be with Tobias when I did. I felt hot tears track down the sides of my face, but I couldn't move. I closed my eyes and listened to the footsteps. They were getting louder, which meant he was closer. Possibly he'd get to me before I died.
That would be nice, I thought, and fell into darkness again, coming out only when I felt the boom of Tobias as he skidded to his knees on the ground beside me, each vibration shooting pain through my entire body, but I was too weak to even whimper.
"Liv, goddamnit," he said, running his hand down my arm. It was a gentle touch, but it still hurt like a mother.
I opened my eyes. "Quit it!" I croaked, each word a torture in my ruined throat. I tried to wrench my arm away from him, but it just wiggled a little, and gave me spasms of pain for my trouble.
He leaned over me, his hand gently touching my face. "I need you to stay with me, Liv."
I could tell he was trying to keep a calm facade, but underneath, there was panic in his eyes. If I didn't know I was going to die before, I knew it now. Tears pricked my eyes. "Tobias..."
"Stop. You're going to be fine." He shrugged a messenger bag off his shoulder and pulled a water bottle out, then put his hand under my head, angling me up.
"Ow!" I grunted, but he ignored me, pushing the water bottle to my lips and squirting liquid that was not water into my mouth. I sputtered it out with what strength I had, finally feeling the desire to live, even though I knew it was hopeless, and I started to cry.
"Liv, listen to me," he said, his voice calm and even. "You need to drink this. You understand?"
I managed to focus my eyes on his face, his beautiful face. His eyes were red-rimmed and frantic, his hair was a mess, and he looked like he could maybe use a shave, but he was my Tobias, and he was always beautiful to me.
A racking pain shot through my body, and I whimpered. "It hurts."
"Yeah. I know." He touched the bottle to my lips and squirted it into my mouth. I sputtered a bit, the stuff tasted like flat beer with dirt in it, but once swallowed it was cool and soothing to my wretched esophagus, and I managed to drink some. I swallowed down as much as I could, then fell back on the ground. The racking pain subsided, but then ...
"Oh, god, I don't feel right," I said, and Tobias held me while I vomited everything I'd ever consumed in my life onto the ground. After a few minutes, I collapsed against him, the thrumming of his heart next to my ear giving me some comfort through my intense misery. He held me to him, one hand cupping my head as the other wrapped around my middle, pulling me toward his warmth.
"You all done?" he asked after a minute.
"I thought that was supposed to make me feel better."
"It's supposed to save your life," he said "Can you move your toes?"
I looked down at my legs, which still felt leaden and cold. Although breathing was no longer as painful as it had been before, just the idea of moving my toes made me start to cry. "I can't."
"Try."
"It's too hard," I whimpered.
"Liv, come on. Just try." His voice was ragged, and I could hear the desperation in it. "Please."
"Okay." I sniffled, concentrated, and wriggled my right big toe a little. "Can I die now?"
"No." He pulled a green hoodie sweatshirt out of his pack and slid it over my head, not bothering to string my arms through the sleeves, then settled me gently back on the ground. I looked up at him as he slung his bag back over his shoulders, the predawn sunlight bathing him in a soft glow that made him look almost unreal. Maybe I had imagined it all. Maybe he wasn't really there.
Maybe I was already dead.
Huh.
He looked around, then put his fingers between his teeth and let out an ear-shattering whistle.
"Ow," I said, and then I heard footsteps. I pulled my focus onto Tobias, who was standing still, but watching a point to my left. Slowly, I forced my head to turn, but all I saw were an old pair of construction work boots, and then a rough, Southern voice said, "She alive?"
"Yeah," I heard Tobias say, his voice tense. "She's not doing great, though."
There was a grunt, then the work boots stopped next to me. A moment later, Cain crouched down and looked at me, his eyes flickering with cold assessment over my face, then my body.
"Can she move?" he asked, not bothering to talk directly to me.
"A little," Tobias said, his voice quiet.
Cain reached out to touch my face, and I wanted to shrink back from him, but I couldn't. Maintaining consciousness was about all I had it in me to do at the moment.
"No," I said, my eyes filling with tears. How could Tobias do this? Bring Cain to me when I was at my weakest? What the hell was going on? My vision started to darken, but whether it was a result of my panic or my impending death, I didn't know.
"We have to go back to my place," Cain said, leaning forward to pick me up.
"No," I whimpered, and my body started to shake and convulse.
"I got her," Tobias said. A moment later, the hard earth was no longer under me, and I was being jostled about in Tobias's arms as he carried me out of the forest. I tried to speak, to ask Tobias what the hell he was doing with Cain, but the pain of the movement was too much, and I passed into blackness instead.
When I woke up, I was lying on a futon, staring at a nicotine yellow ceiling in a vaguely familiar studio apartment, although I couldn't place where I'd seen it before. I didn't know how long I'd been passed out, but the light outside wasn't full yet, so it couldn't have been too long. Or, it was so long that it was already dusk.
Or, I was dead, and hell was a studio apartment with nicotine ceilings. At this point, my mind was open to anything.
"Tobias?" I croaked, my throat rough and pained from all the abuse it had taken.
I heard noise, the clanking of pots, pans, utensils, and I lifted my head a bit to look. Cain was rummaging through the cabinets in his kitchenette, pulling out little bottles and tins and setting them aside. They looked a lot like the bottles and tins I'd seen Davina using.
"Where's Tobias?"
"What?" He opened a tin, sniffed it, then shook his head and tossed it aside on the counter.
"Tobias?"
Cain looked at me over his shoulder, then opened another cabinet and continued rummaging.
"He went to get me something I need," he said. "He'll be back later."
"Oh." I laid my head back down on the cushion. I was covered with a blanket, but my body was still shivering involuntarily with cold. "Are you going to kill me?"
I couldn't see Cain anymore, but from the sounds of things, he just continued his business in the kitchenette, ignoring me.
"It's just that, if you're going to kill me, it's kind of mean to bring me here to do it. I had the job half-done for you in the forest."
He made a harsh sound, then said, "Shut up and let me concentrate."
"She tried to kill me," I said, staring at the ceiling while the bottles and tins clanked in the kitchenette. "You tried to kill me. I don't understand why people want to kill me. I'm basically a very nice person."
"I didn't try to kill you," he said. "I tried to kill her."
I blinked, trying to adjust my memory to what had really happened, but my mind was reeling. I couldn't put it all together.
"But ... that night..."
"I was following her. She took the opportunity to put on a show for you."
I tried to wrap my mind around it all. The woods, the smoke, the branches flying ... it had been Davina. "But she was knocked out. How...?"
He made a disgusted noise. "She was never knocked out."
And then, the truth flowed over me like water. It had been Davina all along. She'd used Millie and Amber Dorsey as conduits, and blamed Cain to get my trust. She was the gray smoke. Not Cain. She'd never actually been knocked out that night in the woods; she'd faked it to frame Cain. Tobias knew this, and had brought Cain to me to save me, not to kill me.
I took a moment to adjust to this, to temper my intense dislike of Cain and my strong affection for Davina with the knowledge that he hadn't done any of the bad stuff; she had. But the proof was simple; Tobias had trusted me to Cain, and I trusted Tobias.
So that was that.
"God, I'm so stupid," I said.
There was a long pause, then, "You're not stupid. You just wanted to believe. Get someone who wants to believe, half your work is done for you."
I closed my eyes, then opened them again as I realized something. "Hey. This is the apartment above Happy Larry's, isn't it? I was here for a party once in high school."
Cain grunted. I took that as confirmation.
"Happy Larry lied. He told Betty he hadn't seen you."
"A good man knows when to keep his mouth shut."
"Happy Larry is not a good man. Happy Larry is a sleazebag," I said. "You paid him off, didn't you?"
"Damnit. Where the hell is it?" Cain opened a drawer, cursed, and shut it again.
I stared at the ceiling and just repeated whatever thoughts came into my head. "I don't understand anything that's happening."
"Here it is," Cain muttered. I heard water running, and looked up to see him filling a pot. I rested my head back down, and tried to move my fingers. It hurt, but not as much as I thought it would.
"I can move my fingers," I said. "That's good, right?"
"Don't move anything. Just breathe and shut the hell up. You're not out of the woods yet. You like Splenda? Don't much matter, it's all that's in here." He ripped open two packets and dumped them in the pot.
"I hate Splenda," I said. "Any man who doesn't appreciate a woman with curves probably doesn't like women much to begin with, anyway." I remembered when Davina had said that the night we met, how much I had liked her. My eyes filled with tears and I blinked them back, not wanting to deal with Cain's certain surly response to my being a human person.
Cain grabbed a spoon and started stirring. I went quiet for a while, staring at his ceiling, distracting myself by wondering if it was originally white and had just been neglected into that nicotine yellow, or if Happy Larry the Sleazebag had actually thought that was a good color for the apartment. I entertained the idea of asking Cain, but then decided he'd just tell me to shut the hell up anyway.
A few minutes later, he was at my side, holding a plain mug with a blue stripe around the top.
"Hey," I said. "I know that mug. Did Happy Larry steal that from CCB's? He did, the sleazebag."
He put his hand behind my head and held the cup to my lips. "Drink."
"Oh, god, not another putrid - " I began, but stopped as I sniffed. "Wait. That actually smells not bad."
Something that might have passed for a smile if you're grading on a really big curve graced his lips, and he said softly, "Just drink it, okay?"
I leaned forward a bit with his help and sipped it. It was warm, not hot, and tasted of peppermint and licorice, and the feel of it in my ruined throat was incredible. It wasn't terribly sweet, but just enough, and as I drank it down, the pain in my body started to fade a bit. I stopped halfway through, but Cain kept holding me up until I'd finished every last drop, then he gently lowered me down onto the couch.
"I'm not going to throw everything up again, am I?" I asked. "Because that was kind of a mean trick."
Cain walked to the other side of the tiny room, grabbed the pillow and blanket from his bed in the corner, and brought them back to me.
"I don't need those," I said. "I feel a lot better. Just give me a minute, and I'll be out of your hair."
"Shut up." He lifted my head and set the pillow underneath, then flipped the blanket out over me. "You're not going anywhere until you're stronger. Go to sleep."
"Stop telling me to shut up," I said, my lower lip twitching as my mood swung back into the crying zone. "I'm tired and I hurt and I'm scared, so stop being mean to me."
He paused for a moment, watching me.
"You gonna cry again?"
I blinked a few times and took a deep breath. "No."
"Good." His expression seemed to soften a bit, and I looked up at him. We stayed like that for a bit, both of us seeming to accept the gentle transition from enemies to ... well, not exactly friends, but we were on the same side at least. For the moment, anyway.
He broke the eye contact first, turning to grab the ugly orange recliner and shove it next to the couch. He sat down, flicked the legs out, and said, "Get some sleep. I'll be right here. She's gonna be hurting for a while, too, so it'll be a bit before she tries to get at you again."
"Is that supposed to comfort me?"
He shrugged, leaning back into the chair. "It's what I got."
"Right." I turned over onto my side, hugging the pillow under my head. "Why are you here? What does any of this have to do with you?"
He closed his eyes and rested his head back on the chair, and for a moment, I thought he hadn't heard me, but then he said. "I'm here because of her."
"Because of who?" I asked.
It took him a minute to answer. "Holly."
Holly. "My sister," I said absently. "Davina told me you killed her."
He let out a bitter huff. "She did, did she?"
"Not true?"
He was quiet for a long while, his face stony, and then he said, "No. It's not true."
I let the puzzle pieces slowly rearrange themselves in my head. "She's the one who stole Holly's magic. She was the conjurer. She's the one who's going crazy, and needs my day magic to balance herself out." I felt dizzy, all the pieces flying around me, and I picked one out of the air. "And you ... did you know Holly? Were you friends, too?"
He didn't answer, just stared off at a spot on the wall over my head, and my heart cracked a little as the realization hit.
"You loved her," I said, and his eyes shot back to mine. "Holly," I added, as if either of us needed the clarification.
Even through the hard shell he kept around him, I could see the pain in his face, the slump of his body, and my heart ached for him. Or for me. Probably both.
"You loved her," I said again, and again, he didn't argue. "Did she love you back?"
He lowered his eyes, and I could see the answer. Yes. She had.
"So ... you're kind of like my brother-in-law, then."
"Go to sleep."
"No." I took a breath, trying to slow my thudding heart, and with great effort, pushed myself up to sitting.
"You forget the part where I saved your life? Least you can do is listen when I say you need rest."
"I want to know what happened," I said. "To Holly."
He gave me a dark look. "You know all you need to know."
"What was she like?"
"Lie back down. You look like you're gonna vomit again, and I don't want a mess on my floor."
"I just want to know what she was like," I said. "Was she pretty? Was she kind? Was she smart? Funny?"
Just the effort of sitting up was making me dizzy, but the idea of lying down and going to sleep without learning everything there was to know about my sister from the man who had loved her seemed unthinkable.
Cain leaned forward, his tone uncharacteristically gentle. "We'll talk when you're stronger. But for now, you need to rest. Okay?"
"Okay." I leaned back, slowly, onto the couch and my body trembled a bit with the effort. My eyes filled with tears, and I didn't bother to blink them back. A father I'd never known about was missing, probably dead; a sister I'd never known about was definitely dead; and the friend I'd thought could help me make sense out of it all had betrayed me.
Cain shifted in his seat, but I didn't look at him, just closed my eyes and let the tears flow. Screw him if he didn't like it.
I heard him get up a moment later, and when I looked up, he was holding a roll of toilet paper out to me.
"Thanks." I took it from him, ripped off a length, and blew my nose. He sat down in the recliner and kicked the legs out again. I cried for as long as I needed to, and he didn't say a word. After a while, the grief dried up, leaving only exhaustion in its wake. I snuggled into the soft pillow.
"Happy Larry really is a sleazebag," I said, sniffling.
"Yeah," he said quietly, leaning his head back on the chair and closing his eyes. "He is."
I don't know how long I slept, but it was almost dark when I opened my eyes again. I could feel the thump-thump from the music downstairs in the bar, but I couldn't hear clearly enough to tell what song it was exactly, which said some impressive things about the construction of the building, considering the apartment was right on top of the bar. I stretched for a moment, rolled on my side, and looked around.
Cain was gone, but Tobias was there, asleep in the orange easy chair, his hands clasped lightly over his stomach. I didn't make any noise, just watched him, but apparently the heat of my stare was enough to wake him. He opened his eyes and watched me for a long while, unmoving.
"How are you doing?" he said finally.
I sniffed. "It smells bad in here."
"That's probably me."
"I don't think so." I reached up to my neck, where something was tucked around my throat, into my sweatshirt. I pulled it out, holding it away from me with my two fingers.
A damp gym sock that had been filled with some kind of weird paste.
"Oh, right," Tobias said. "That's a poultice, for your throat. Cain sent me all the way out to Buffalo to get the mullein. I don't even know what the hell else he put in there."
"These people and gym socks, I swear. Smells like a mix of baby butt paste and dead muskrat." I tossed it across the room and lay back down. "Where is Cain?"
"Outside, having a smoke." Tobias kept his eyes on me, and even in the dark, I could see the intensity in his expression as he watched me. "How are you feeling?"
I took a moment to check myself. I wasn't cold anymore. My throat was still a bit raw, but definitely improved. My muscles felt weak and sore, but other than that ...
"I think I might survive."
Tobias cleared his throat. "For a while there, we weren't sure you would."
"Oh." I swallowed. "Sorry."
His every muscle seemed taut with tension, making him look like an animal on alert for an attack. "Wanna tell me what the hell happened?"
I looked at him, surprised by the sudden ice in his tone. "You know what happened."
He got up from the chair and went to the window, staring out of it as he spoke. "I know that I asked you to stay home and wait for me, and I know that you didn't. What I don't know is if my advice even entered your mind when you were running off to get yourself killed."
I pulled myself up to a sitting position, and it made me a little dizzy, but lying down while getting yelled at made me feel too vulnerable. "Peach got attacked. I panicked. I just wanted the magic gone, I wanted it out of me. So I sent for Davina."
He turned to face me. "Why didn't you send for me?"
"Because..."
He waited for a moment for me to elaborate, and when I didn't, he let out an exasperated sigh. "Because why?"
I shrugged, annoyance creeping through me as he made me feel more and more like a kid in the principal's office. "Because I wanted it gone, and you couldn't help me with that. Davina could."
He let out a harsh, mirthless laugh. "Yeah. The same way she helped your sister, leaving her dead in the middle of a forest? Is that what you wanted? Because ten more minutes, and you would have had it."
"I didn't know that at the time. I thought Cain killed Holly, and I thought Davina was my friend." I put my hand to my spinning head. "Tobias, I'm in rough shape. Any chance the grilling can wait for a while?"
"Sure." He sat down in the chair, leaning back and pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. He looked like hell, which made me feel like hell, but there was nothing to do but sit there and let the tension set around us.
"I thought you were dead," he said finally, but when I looked at him, he wasn't looking at me. He was staring at the ceiling. "I saw you lying there ... you were so still. When I touched you, you were cold and all I could think was that you were dead and I had killed you."
"Tobias, that's ridiculous."
He shifted his focus to lock his eyes with mine. "I didn't want to crowd you. Had you just been a job, I would have shadowed you every minute. I wouldn't give a rat's ass if you were mad at me or if you didn't like it. I would have protected you."
At this, my ire rose. "What, just because I'm a woman, I can't take care of myself? I need a man around to protect me all the time? Sexist ass."
He gave me a dull look. "Not because you're a woman. Because someone wants to kill you, and I have more experience with that than you do."
My ire deflated. "Oh."
He let out a huff of annoyance. "Yeah."
"So ... I guess I'm the sexist ass in this scenario, then?"
"Yep."
"Just checking." I yawned, unable to help myself, then breathed deeply and immediately regretted it. "Jeez, I need a shower. I smell like stinky gym sock."
He was silent, staring off into space. I sat forward, leaning my elbows on my knees.
"Forgive me for what I'm about to say, because I know every girlfriend in the world says this and it's awful but ... what are you thinking?"
He watched me for a long moment, then said, "I'm thinking that you're not my girlfriend."
I felt the stab of that hit me hard in the gut, and I took a breath and sat back. "Ow."
"Liv - "
"No, I got it." I blinked hard, and took in a deep breath. "Message received."
"There's no way to make it work," he said, his tone flat. "One of these days, I'm going to disappear, and you'll never hear from me again."
"Stop protecting me," I said. "I'm a grown woman. I get to decide what I can handle and what I can't."
"What if I can't handle it?"
He said it so quietly that I almost wasn't sure if I'd heard him right, but when I looked at him, I knew I had. He was drained, both physically and emotionally, and he was coming off two days of panic and worry and very little sleep, if he'd gotten any at all. I put myself in his shoes for a moment, imagining how I would have felt if the roles were reversed. The very thought of finding him half-dead, of not knowing whether or not he would survive, of believing that I could have protected him but had failed ... just imagining it made me feel sick.
I was still trying to figure out what to say when the front door opened, and Cain walked in. I hugged my arms around myself, digging my fingers into my sides and trying to concentrate on the physical pain, which was tough, but at least bearable. Tobias shot up off the chair and went out the door, letting it close quietly behind him.
"I see you've been winning friends and influencing people," Cain said wryly.
"Can I go home now?" I looked up at him, trying to focus my anger on him rather than deal with what had just happened between me and Tobias.
Cain watched me for a moment, then glanced toward the door through which Tobias had disappeared. When he looked back at me, his expression was not friendly, exactly, but it wasn't antagonistic, either.
"Yeah," he said. "If you can walk, you can go home."
I pushed myself up from the futon and took a step. My muscles felt wobbly, but I managed to put one foot in front of the other and not fall down, so I chalked that up as success. Cain walked over to me, took my hand and placed it on his shoulder, and I pulled it away.
"You either lean on me or him," he said, motioning his head in the direction Tobias had gone. "But you're not making it down those steps without help."
I sighed and gripped his shoulder, letting him put one hand on the small of my back to help guide me. We stepped outside onto the metal exterior steps that led down the side of Happy Larry's to the alley. Tobias, who had been sitting on the top step, got up.
"We're going back to her house," Cain said. He and Tobias exchanged a glance, and Tobias stepped out of the way to let us by. I kept my eyes on my feet as we navigated the rickety metal staircase, and managed to ignore the fact that Tobias was right behind us as we made our way home.