Scryer (13 page)

I didn’t give
him another look as I exited the car and broke into a run toward the door of my
building. I sprinted up the stairs as if being chased and didn’t breathe again
until I had the door opened and then safely locked behind me. I leaned my head
against it and waited. Did I want him to follow me? I told myself no, but I
still waited by that door as the minutes ticked past and my head swam with
confusion.

Caleb didn’t turn up at the time that we
had arranged. I watched the clock and tried to ignore my disappointment. Had he
found out about me nearly making love to Lake? No, of course he didn’t know,
and if he had, would he even care? Why did I care? We weren’t dating; we were
just…

I had another glass of wine and ignored
the hours that passed. At midnight, I was well and truly drunk. My eyes stayed
dry though, and I kept my thoughts on the candles in front of me. They were
arranged so that they formed a line, and one by one, a flame would appear on
each wick before slowly going out as I willed it to. But instead of feeling
triumphant, I just felt empty and even more depressed. What was the point of
this? What good would it do me? It was just another thing that made me a freak.
No one would ever understand, except Lake, perhaps. Could I overlook the
betrayal, overlook what he was? Could I be like my mother and readily accept my
love for one of
them?

I had never even met him—the love of her
life. I was kept away in her house as she went to visit him. Perhaps that meant
that she didn’t really trust him deep down, or maybe she just wanted me out of
the way. I took another drink at the thought. She did, however, make me attend
the funeral. We both dressed in black and my hair was elaborately braided and
my lips painted a soft pink. We stood at the back, ignored by all. As the
casket was lowered into the ground and we turned to leave, Michael stopped us.
Tall and handsome, he embraced my mother and gave her his condolences. I
thought she would have beamed with joy at being recognized as something other
than his mistress, but instead she regarded him coldly, never moving a muscle
except for when his attention turned to me, and he took my hand and kissed it.

“Ivy,” Michael said, “I look forward to
spending time with you in the future. You’re nearly of age I suppose.” His
smile wasn’t slimy, it was warm and welcoming, and in spite of myself I didn’t
shy away from him.

“Come, Ivy,” my mother barked, and
slowly Michael had released my hand, almost with reluctance. And then, after we
got home, my mother ran a bath and slit her wrists while the bathroom flooded
with red water.

I heard the key in the lock turn and the
door creak as it opened. As always, I sat in the dark, and waited for Penzance
to illuminate the room. When she didn’t, I turned from where I sat. She stood
by the door, unmoving in the dark.

“Where have you been?” I asked, not even
embarrassed that my speech was slurred.

She didn’t answer, and just took a step
closer to me. “How drunk are you, Ivy?”

I turned back to my glass. “Why?”

I heard her footsteps as she came closer
and I half expected her to grab a glass and join me. “Because it makes
everything easier.”

I picked up my bottle and tipped it, but
only a drop came out. “Makes what easier?” I asked listlessly, still staring at
the empty bottle. What would I drink now? Maybe Penzance had something hidden
in her room.

I turned to ask her just as she said. “
This
.”

I caught sight of her just as she swung
something toward my head. My head exploded with pain, and the bottle I held
shattered as it fell from my hand. At some point, I had landed on the floor and
my eyes opened groggily to be faced with dark glass and red drops. Wine or
blood, I couldn’t decide or think. More footsteps and pretty shoes trod over
the glass. I saw my hand move, my fingers curve to scrape at the ground, to
grab that shoe, to stop whatever was to happen next.

But the hand was useless. It couldn’t
even move to cover my head and another blow came down on me. I heard moaning,
and realized that it came from me. I wanted to vomit, but instead   everything
faded away in blackness, fear and confusion falling into a blessed abyss.

My
eyes opened to a ceiling of cobweb-covered rafters leading down to exposed
brick walls. One small window let in a slit of light that hurt my eyes.
Actually, everything about me hurt, and I squeezed my eyes closed but the pain
didn’t let up. I knew where I was. I felt the chill and the dread closing
around my heart and stealing my breath. It was the warehouse that Magdalena had
been asked to investigate. The one where bad things happened…

My eyes flew open, and my whole body
tried to recoil, but nothing would budge. Some kind of rough rope bit into the
flesh of my wrists and ankles. My arms were above my head, leaving me as defenseless
as when Penzance had hurt me.

Wait. Penzance? Did I remember that
wrong? I managed to shift my eyes downwards. I was nude and on a table. Was
this the Circle’s ritual? I had never been treated like this before by them. Where
was the red skirt? With panic rising in me, I began to struggle as a scream
rose in my throat. Before I could let any sound escape, I heard footsteps and
disturbed dust rose up to clog my throat. The intruder, captor, whoever it was,
was out of my eyesight range. I struggled harder so that the rope rubbed
against my skin painfully. But more painful than my skin rubbed raw, was this
lack of control. It was unbearable. My vulnerability was agony in itself.

“Ivy.”

I froze, waiting for him to speak again
so I could be sure of to whom that voice belonged. When Caleb stepped into my
line of sight, my heart sunk. The look on his face was solemn and serious.
There was none of his customary arrogance or playfulness.

“I don’t suppose that this is some kind
of kinky sex game,” I asked in a raw voice that spelt out my recognition of
defeat.

“No,” he said softly.

“You, and Penzance…why?”

I heard lighter footsteps this time,
familiar footsteps. Penzance wore a white robe draped around her shoulders and
fastened at her neck with a brooch. In her hand she held a black pouch that she
placed on an adjacent table.

“I’m sorry, Ivy. This is regrettable,
but it always had to come to this,” she said simply as she opened that pouch. I
struggled to see what was in it, and when I did, I wished that I hadn’t. An
array of shiny knives were laid out one by one with great care, their blades
catching the dull sunlight and sending flashes around the room. Not for the
first time, I yearned to see my own future. What was the point of having the
scrying gift if it could never benefit me? The injustice was enough to make me
want to howl.

“Why?” I croaked.
And why didn’t I
see anything about her?

“You work for them, Ivy. You help them
destroy our land with their greed. The knowledge that you give them makes them
nearly invincible,” Penzance said, almost sadly. “I blocked you. I created a
background and a future for myself that your talent would see and make you
believe.”

“How is that possible?” It took great
effort to keep my voice calm.

She gave me a small smile. “We’re
witches. In a way, we’re just like you, except we don’t see the future, and our
power is derived from nature. The destruction that the Circle causes affects
us. We can’t attack them directly, your kind would warn them, but what we can
do is kill you off. Your talents don’t extend to your own wellbeing.” She shook
her head at me. “It was so easy to befriend you, Ivy. You’re so lonely and
sad…” The pity on her face made me want to scream.

“Why fucking bother to be my friend,
then?” I snarled at her, before turning my eyes to the silent Caleb. “Why
bother screwing me? You would have hunted me down anyway like you did the
others. Was this just some kind of sick
game
to you?”

“Screwing me was your idea, Ivy. I
didn’t actively seek you out.” He gave a shrug. “I must admit that it was
satisfying having you of all people in my bed. I liked having what the Corins
thought belonged to them. Plus, you liked it, Ivy. We had a good time
together.”

“Shut up, Caleb.” Penzance turned her
eyes to me. “You’re special, Ivy, compared to the others. You must know that,
with the attachment that they have to you…Although, I must say that I was surprised
when Lake Corin turned up at my door, and you had no idea who he was. I felt
sorry for you then, I really did.”

“Do you feel sorry for me now?” I asked
snarkily as I pulled at my binds again, and my skin stung once more.

“Don’t,” Caleb said. “You’ll hurt
yourself.”

I gave a hollow laugh. “I think I’ll get
hurt anyway when you rip out my heart.” My voice started to break and I clapped
my mouth shut as the realization of what they were about to inflict on me sank
it. The surprise and shock of the situation had pushed away thoughts of the horror
to come.

“Give her something to calm her down,”
Caleb said to Penzance.

She shook her head. “I’m not doing
anything without your father’s say so. You are not in control here, Caleb.
You’d better remember that,” she said crisply. Caleb’s back was to me, and I
couldn’t see his reaction.

“Why do you have to rip out my heart?” I
couldn’t stop myself from asking even though I didn’t really want to know.

Caleb turned. “So they can’t resurrect
you.”

“Resurrect me?” I laughed; it was a
horrible sound. “They’re not gods.”

“They seem to think that they are,”
Penzance scowled. “They may not have any talent themselves, but they certainly
find those who do to serve their purpose. They take witches and enslave them,
and your kind just helps them. You never fight; you never struggle. You just
stay there and
take
it.” She shook her head, her face twisting with
distress at the thought. “It’s disgusting.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, mentally
willing away this nightmare but when I opened them again, nothing had changed,
except Caleb had left the room. Penzance stood with her hands clasped together
in front of her as she stood beside her table of knives.

“Stop looking at me!” I snapped at her.
It was easier to harness anger than fear. Anger gave me power; fear stole
everything from me.

“I was good to you,” she told me. “I
tried to make your last months happy. I tried to make you have a normal life,
but you wouldn’t accept my help. You just wanted to live out your miserable
existence through drinking by yourself and screwing any male that came along.”
She gave a slight laugh, but there was no humor in it. “I tried to warn you
against Caleb. I told you he was bad.”

“So are you,” I said listlessly.

She shook her head. “No. I’m doing all
of this with a purpose, out of a genuine care for our environment and land from
which all we have has come. Caleb, on the other hand, does it because he was
told to. His father leads our coven, and Caleb does what he’s told so he can
lead someday, but he doesn’t care, he only cares about himself. I, on the other
hand, care too much.”

“What are you waiting for, then?” I shot
at her. “Get it over with.”

She gave a slight laugh. “You don’t know
much about witches, do you? I’m waiting for the others to arrive. We need six.
Witches always need six to perform incantations. We will return your blood to
the earth so that you can finally do some good in the world, Ivy.” She stepped
forward and stroked my hair, and it was agony to keep still underneath her
touch. “You need to accept your fate, Ivy, as we all accept ours.” Her voice
was smooth and calm; it was so unlike the Penzance who was my roommate and
never hid her flaws. Although, she obviously wasn’t real. She was a carefully
crafted character to make me relax around her. Then her mouth went down at one
corner as she took a deep breath. “I can slit your throat first. That way it
won’t hurt. I’m not supposed to do it like that, but…”

I broke out into laughter and saw her
eyes widen in surprise at my reaction. “You stupid bitch. I don’t need your
mercy or your pity. You have no fucking idea what I am or what I can do. You
think that you’ve won? You think that you can destroy me?” Rage overtook all
fear then. It burst to my surface in a vicious torrent that I imagined like a
smooth wall of water: unstoppable and formidable. “You think that I’m evil and
need to be put down like some kind of errant dog? You have no idea how wicked I
can be.” My wrists strained against the ropes and that spurred on my ferocious
rage even more. The Circle may have bound me with unseen restraints, but there
was always an element of freedom there. The torture of the bindings cutting
into my skin released something in me along with the pain. The words formed on
my tongue almost without me thinking of them, but the pleasure that they gave was
exquisite, sending a shiver of brutal delight down my spine.

“I’m going to watch you
burn
,
bitch.”

She took a step back, but that wouldn’t
help her. At first, there was just a wisp of smoke, before the first flame
appeared in her hair, and then every beautiful blonde strand of hair on her
head ignited in a fire-ball and the screaming began.

I should have closed my eyes, but I
couldn’t as the flames engulfed her. I couldn’t have stopped the fire then,
even if I wanted to. Instead of feeling horror, I felt euphoria. It swept over
me with an almost sensuality where every nerve in me tingled with an ignited
desire. With shock, I realized that I was
turned on
by my power; by my
own cruelty. I heard her screams, but they sounded so far away as if I had
allocated the horrific sound to a small, hidden recess in my brain. Gradually,
the awful sound died away.

 She collapsed to the floor and the flames
burned her down to nothing as they melted away her skin and gore, reducing her
to down to charred bone that still burned.

Caleb burst through the door. In his
hands he held a robe like Penzance had been wearing and he threw it over the
fire. The robe didn’t suffocate the flames though. Instead, they just burned
through it. I felt the oppression of the interference like it was over me,
trapping me, and suddenly, the euphoria died within me, only to be replaced
with fatigue. I gave up. The flames went out, and Penzance was dead.

Caleb stood there, panting for a moment,
before slowly turning to me. “You did this,” he said, more to himself than to
me.

“Yes.”

Could I do it again? No. I felt
exhausted. I resigned myself to my fate as he took a knife and walked over to
me. I closed my eyes and waited, but I never felt the sharpness of a blade
piercing my skin. Instead, with a few tugs, I was cut free. First my arms and
then my ankles.

“What are you doing?” I drew my stiff
and aching limbs back to my body, covering myself as I managed to sit up,

“What do you think I’m doing?” he
snapped as he threw the knife back on the table. “I’m letting you go before the
others get here to kill you.”

I swung my legs off the table. “Why are
you helping me?”

I watched as he pulled his t-shirt over
his head and threw it at me. “Get dressed. You haven’t got much time.”

I didn’t need to be told twice. I pulled
the t-shirt over my head and pulled it down to cover my nudity. It stopped just
above my knees. It would have to do. He pulled out his wallet and bundled cash
into my hand.

“You’ll get in trouble,” I said as I
took the cash, folding my hands over it to stop the trembling.

“Don’t worry about me,” he muttered. “Go
away, Ivy. You need to leave, disappear or we’ll keep coming for you.” He
unbolted the small door at the far end of the room. It hadn’t been opened for a
long time and he had to shove his shoulder against it and force it to open wide.
It revealed a small, rickety fire escape. He indicated with his head. “Go.”

I met his eyes before I ducked through,
a thousand questions burning in my mind. But my desire for survival overcame
them. Agile in my bare feet, I climbed swiftly down the ladder. It stopped
several feet above the ground, and I had to leap down. I landed awkwardly on my
ankle and bit my lip as pain seared through me. Above me, I heard the door slam
shut and the bolts slide back into place.

I had to keep moving. I was in a narrow
alleyway with an opening at either end. I just had to hope that I made the
right choice in the direction that I took. I limped as fast as I could. I must
have made a pathetic figure, clad in just an oversized t-shirt, my legs bare,
and smelling like smoke and burning flesh.

When I made it onto the street, a few
stares were directed my way, but no one asked if I was okay. Besides, this
wasn’t a great part of town and there were many in worse shape than myself.
When I finally found a taxi, I nearly cried with relief.

“Where to?” the driver asked. I began to
give my address then stopped. They knew where I lived; it was no longer safe
for me at the apartment. Then I thought of Magdalena. We weren’t friends exactly,
but I didn’t think that she would turn me away. But did I want to expose her to
this? And if they came after me, would they hurt her?

“Where to?” the driver asked
impatiently. I took a breath and gave him Lake’s address. He let out a low
whistle. “Nice part of town.”

I had only been to Lake’s apartment once
while we were together. He preferred my bed or hotels like I was a dirty little
secret to be hidden. As the cab came to a stop outside the shiny steel and
glass apartment building, I handed the cash to the driver before getting out.
The doorman stopped me. In his pressed uniform, he looked down at me.