Burn For Him (26 page)

“Carrie.” Suddenly, there were hands on me, checking me over and pulling me up to my feet.  I couldn’t move under my own steam. Arms cradled me.

“Carrie? Can you hear me?” That voice sounded far away.  It was like I had been caught up in an explosion and now my ears were numb.  I nodded gently in acknowledgment.  I could hear Harper even if it did sound like he was a million miles away from me.

“Can you open your eyes for me?”

I shook my head. I couldn’t.  I didn’t want to.  I didn’t want to have to open my eyes and face the fire that brought all of my worst nightmares back to the front of my mind.

“Try.  Please try, Carrie.”  Harper sounded insistent.  I tried.  They didn’t want to open.  It was like my eyelids had melted together from the fire, even though there had been no heat.   That thought in itself scared me more than anything else and my eyes flew open violently.

No fire.

Harper was knelt down in front of me. Leon was standing behind him.

“Milligan?” I asked, my voice croaking.  The fire might not have been real but my body and mind had believed it to be and I still felt the phantom burn of heat in my throat.

“Where is he?”

“Right here.”  I flinched in fear until he held up a small vial on the end of a sparkling chain.  The vial was glass and you could see the swirl of clear liquid with a twist of aqua blue running through it.

“What is that?” I asked in a whisper, unable to take my eyes off of the swirl of colour that seemed to constantly move and dance within itself.

“That’s Milligan.  Well, at least it is his essence. It worked, Carrie.  It all worked.”

“But, how?” I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  That little blue swirl that was trapped in a vial of holy water was all that was left of him.

“We exorcised his essence and then bound him for an eternity.  The holy water holds his power.”

“I can’t believe it.  I can’t believe that it’s over.” I said in awe as I stared intently at the vial.

“I’m sorry that you had to go through all of that.” Harper said.  He knew all about my fear of fire.  I shook my head slightly.  I would go through that all over again if I would get rid of Milligan. It was worth the pain and the anguish that I’d been through to know that I was now free.

It suddenly dawned on me that I was free.  I was free of Milligan’s clutches.  I couldn’t feel any of that kind of pull from the strange liquid that was trapped in the vial.  A slow grin started to spread across my face as I looked up at Harper.  He looked thoroughly exhausted.

“You did it! You really did it!” I threw my arms around his neck and laughed manically.  Milligan had come into my life and had managed to turn everything on its head in only a matter of weeks.  I couldn’t believe that it was all over.

I looked up from his shoulder.  Tears were streaming down my face.  I spun around, wavering slightly on my unsteady legs.  I looked around wildly.  “Where’s Marissa?” I couldn’t believe that she would have left so quickly.  I knew that she would have wanted to stick around to celebrate our victory.

“Here.” Leon said.  I whirled around with an expectant grin on my face.  I froze.  He was holding up a small vial that was hanging on a slim sliver chain around his neck.  Gold swirled within the holy water in the glass vial.

“What? What happened?”

A tear escaped from his eye.  “She got caught up in it.  She bound herself.  She didn’t mean to.  She knew that there was a risk, but she wanted to take it.” His voice cracked with the emotion that he was trying to keep inside.

“Oh, Leon.” I didn’t know what to say.  There was nothing that I could say to make any of it any better.  She had saved me, but in doing so, she had bound herself, effectively killing herself. They had both lost a good friend and the guilt of it washed over me.

“I can see what you’re thinking.  I don’t have to be a Djinn to know the guilt that you’re feeling right now.  Don’t.  Marissa wouldn’t want that.  She knew what she was getting herself into.  She knew all of the risks and she still took them.”

Leon and Harper may not have wanted to me feel any guilt, but it was clear to me that they were going to be feeling bitter about losing their friend.  Marissa had risked her life doing this for me, knowing what could happen, and she’d lost the bet.

“I’m so sorry.”

“You’re safe now, Carrie.  That was what she wanted.  Live your life and be happy.  No regrets. Do it for Marissa.”

I nodded sadly and Leon touched my arm as he made his way to the stairs.  He solemnly shook Harper’s hand, handing him the bottle with Marissa’s essence trapped inside and left us in silence.  I didn’t move.  I was in too much shock at this turn of events.  “I’m so sorry, Harp.”  She had not only been his friend, she was part of his clan.  That meant that she was his family.

Harper shook his head sadly.  “I’ll find a way.  She won’t be bound forever.”  He sounded sad, but determined.  I agreed with him.  I would do anything and everything to help him get Marissa back.

He bent down to scoop up the assortment of stuff that had been spread out on the floor.  I offered to take a bag, but he shouldered them both.  We walked slowly back up the stairs.  At the top, I glanced back down at the darkness below.  There was nothing left behind to say what had happened here.  It was just a basement. It was sad in a way that something so significant would be so easily overlooked and forgotten.

“Carrie?” Harper called my name and I followed him the rest of the way out of the basement, letting the door slam shut behind us with a final bang.  I felt tears rise in my throat again.

I jumped as my phone vibrated in my pocket.  I’d forgotten that it was even there.  With shaking hands, I took it out and tapped the screen.  There was a message there from Steve.  I wondered what the hell he was doing up in the middle of the night.  I opened up the text and stood still.  I couldn’t believe it.

“What is it? Is something wrong?” Harper asked as he walked back over to me.

“It’s Steve.  He’s offering me my job back.”  I looked up at him in shock.

“Milligan’s power has left.  He was manipulating Steve’s actions.  He’s lost that hold on this world now.”  He tapped the vial that was hanging around his neck.  I knew that he would always keep it with him.  If anyone ever found out what we had done here tonight, Harper would want to make sure that no one could get their hands on Milligan’s essence.  We wanted to find a way to get Marissa back, but Milligan was long gone.

We walked a few paces when another thought crossed my mind.  “Destiny!” I cried and Harper turned to look at me and nodded knowingly.

              “I was actually going to suggest calling them after you’ve got some sleep, but go ahead.  Ring the hospital now.  You never know what might have happened.”

I hit the speed dial straight away.  I got put through to the correct ward and, just the same as always, I asked the nurse on duty how Dee was doing.  I held my breath while she went to check. I wanted this to work out so badly.  I hoped that now Milligan’s hold had left that maybe Destiny would start to recover from this mystery illness that was keeping her under.

“Carrie? Oh my god! You’ll never believe it! She awake! She just woke up!” The nurse sounded astounded.

I couldn’t blame her really.  They would all think that this was some kind of medical miracle.  But, I knew what it really was.  It was the power of friendship that had fought long and hard to get to this point. I turned to smile at Harper through my floods of tears. He knew the answer.

“Shall we go and see her now?”

“Yeah.  Right now.”  I beamed a grin at him. 

Things were finally starting to fall back into place.  Sure, a lot of things had come to light and had changed, but we could deal with all that in due time.  We would get through this. 

We would get through this together.

The one thing that would never change was the strength of our friendship.

“Let’s go.”

Chapter Twenty One

3 weeks later…

“I can’t believe you talked me into this.” I shook my head at Harper. I’d had a manic day at work and in all honesty, I would have much preferred to curl up on the sofa with a take-away and a good book. Steve had landed us several new projects and the office was crazy. It felt good to be buried under mountains of work and Steve had gone back to the fun loving boss that we all knew and loved, as opposed to the harassed asshole he’d been acting like of late. I’d suggested a quiet night in but Harper wasn’t having any of that, though. He decided that it was time to start living again.

“What’s that saying? When you get thrown from a horse, you gotta get straight back in the saddle.”

I rolled my eyes at him but couldn’t repress the grin that spread across my face. I didn’t think life was ever going to get back to normal after what happened with Milligan and everything I’d found out about Harper. Who could live normally after that? There were things out there that no one knew about, but I was now privy to. It had me looking at everyone in a different light, trying to determine if they really were who they said they were.

Someone cleared their throat behind us and I turned to look, smiling when I saw Brent standing behind us.

“We’re not going to have any trouble from you tonight, are we?” he scowled.

Harper held up his hands, “You know we never go looking for trouble.”

“It always seems to find you, though.”

“You have no idea.” I muttered under my breath.

“Just try and keep your girl under control, you feel me?” Brent said, flicking his eyes to the dancefloor.

Destiny was out there, strutting her stuff like nothing bad had happened to her only a mere few weeks before. It made me smile. Luckily, there were no lingering after-effects of what Milligan had done to her and she was seriously making the most of being up in the land of the living once again.

I had wanted to tell her everything that had happened but Harper decided that it would be prudent to keep her in the dark. He wasn’t doing it to be mean, or to keep her out of the loop, it was for her own sanity. She would never have believed us, anyway. Who in their right mind would?

It still haunted me. I knew that it would for a long time. I would always be wary of meeting new people, thinking that they had some kind of agenda. Harper assured me that nothing like that would ever happen again. Milligan wasn’t around anymore and Harper had called in reinforcements. Some of his clan were now situated in the city, always on the lookout in case Milligan’s clan decided to retaliate. It had all been quiet so far and I just hoped it would last.

The best thing about this was seeing Destiny out on the dancefloor, dancing like a nut-job like nothing bad had ever happened in her life. She’d been deemed a miracle by the medical staff at the hospital, who couldn’t believe that one minute she was in a coma (albeit a supernaturally induced coma) and then the next she was up on her feet and demanding to get out of there.

The whole thing had brought us all closer together. Sure, Dee knew that we were hiding something from her, but she didn’t press it. The revelations had shed a whole new light on Harper and I was even more grateful to have him in my life. Destiny had suggested that our friendship had changed into something more while she was out of it, but I assured her that we were as platonic as ever. Nothing like that would ever happen between us. I was just glad that he was my best friend, coming into my life when I’d needed him the most and he’d been there for me ever since.

A disturbance on the dancefloor had us automatically turning our heads, knowing what we’d see even before our eyes got there. Destiny getting hot and sweaty with some thug she’d just hooked up with. Great.

“Come on, man. Go sort your girl out.” Brent shook his head as he walked away from us, “Don’t make me slap another ban on the three of you.”

Harper grinned ruefully at me. “Nothing ever changes, does it?”

I laughed. Nothing ever changes, but I wouldn’t want it to.