Crossroads (6 page)

‘No,’ he replied in amusement.

‘Then what are you after, trying to soften me up?’

‘Nothing,’ he chuckled.

‘Well,’ her lips pursed speculatively, ‘you’d better get on with it then.’

He watched her as she turned abruptly and headed towards the back where the office was located. Suddenly she stopped, hesitated and turned back towards him slowly.

‘I love you too,’ she added, a faint blush staining her cheeks under layers of pressed powder.

He smiled as she disappeared into the back room; maybe it was time to start thinking about selling up after all. The soft tinkle of the bell shook him from his thoughts and still smiling he turned towards the door.

‘I’m sorry we’re closing…’

His voice trailed off and the smile fell from his face as he watched the tall figure of a man enter. He was uncommonly tall, must’ve been nearly seven feet in height. He was immaculately dressed in a crisp white shirt and black waistcoat and trousers. His heavy black overcoat was so long it hung to his lower calves, and his silver hair was almost completely concealed by a large wide-brimmed black hat. His skin was papery and heavily lined with age, his cheeks hollow and his mouth a thin tight line but it was his eyes which caused Jonathan Bailey’s own to widen in shock. The stranger’s eyes were completely black, with no whites at all. But it wasn’t just that they were black, Jonathan found himself staring, inexplicably drawn into those shiny orbs, unable to move or even gasp in fear. The blackness seemed to go on endlessly, vast and all encompassing, a soulless void of nothingness.

He couldn’t move. Caught like an insect in a web, his mouth fell open and yet no sound emerged. His eyes widened in fear but he could not close them to shut out the vast inevitable pit he was being sucked down into. He vaguely registered the stranger’s palm pressing against his chest, the abnormally long elegant fingers sinking into his skin as if he were no more than a shadow. There was no blood, no wound but he suddenly felt a shocking tear, as if something precious had been ripped from him. The color drained from his eyes taking them from a merry twinkling brown to the pale colorless cream of a serpent. His lips, still open in a silent scream of stunned agony, held a faint blue stain as his skin turned grey. Then he felt nothing but a shocking emptiness and crushing cold, his body falling backwards in slow motion. He could see it somehow, as if he were suddenly watching from a different vantage point and when it hit the ground he felt nothing.

The stranger withdrew his clenched fist from the discarded body, his long tapered fingers wrapped around a small ball of pure white light which pulsed brightly in his palm. His other hand dipped into the folds of his heavy overcoat and withdrew a small clear glass bottle. He tipped the light into the bottle and pressed a stopper into the neck as if to prevent the strange ball of light from escaping. He shook the bottle a couple of times, seemingly satisfied when it shone even brighter. Tucking the bottle into his breast pocket he turned back to the door, disappearing into the street in a tiny tinkle of bells.

Olivia crossed Main St lost in thought. She settled the weight of her backpack more comfortably on her back but paused suddenly and frowned. For a second she could’ve sworn she’d seen a large black shadow emerge from the doorway of the Bailey’s convenience store. A sudden blast of icy air crashed against her and she took an involuntary step back, drawing in a shaky breath. Curious, she headed towards the Bailey’s store and stepped over the threshold. She’d been in that store so many times and this was an exact replica, right down to the chipped wooden door frame and the faded open sign, but it felt different this time. The store was one of the first places she’d been to when she arrived in the Otherworld and although it was abandoned it had still retained the warmth and smell of home. Not this time, the air was freezing, she could almost feel the hairs rising on the back of her neck and a strange smell lingered on the air. If she had to guess she would have sworn it was the pungent scent of lilies.

It just felt all wrong; she couldn’t describe the what or how, but she could feel it. Stepping further into the store a wave of nausea washed over her. Forcing herself forward she searched the store thoroughly but she couldn’t find anything. Opening the door at the back of the store she stepped into a small windowless room which held a small desk and chair, an ancient computer and a tall metal filing cabinet. Once again she found nothing amiss, just the inexplicable sense of wrongness. She turned back to the door but paused, tilting her head to listen carefully. In the little room, she could hear several low pitched sounds. She had to concentrate, straining to separate them. One sounded like the frantic clatter of nails on a computer keyboard, another made her think of the clink of coins being counted and finally she thought she could hear the low murmur of a familiar voice. In fact, it sounded like Mrs Bailey.

Just when Olivia thought it couldn’t get any stranger she saw a flicker at the edge of her vision and when she turned, just for a split second, she saw Mrs Bailey kneeling down to place a stack of money into the small safe she hadn’t realized was tucked underneath the desk. But as quickly as she had appeared she was gone again. Olivia shook her head; she must be losing her mind. She was probably hallucinating, after all she technically hadn’t slept since the night before they closed the gateway and even then with the revelation of Theo’s wife she hadn’t slept particularly well that night either. With the sudden thought of Theo, the pressure in her chest once again flared. Forcing down a wave of guilt and pain and loneliness all wrapped up in a helpless messy bow of love, she turned and stepped from the tight unpleasant confines of the room.

Stepping back out into the store she headed towards the door. She probably needed to find somewhere comfortable and safe to get her head down for a few hours and sleep.

‘Jonathan!’ the scream of panic ripped through the air unmistakably loud and clear.

She spun around and saw Mrs Bailey emerge from the office her wide shocked eyes focused on something behind Olivia. Before she could react Mrs Bailey rushed forward and passed straight through her and disappeared once again. Olivia sucked in a deep shaky breath and shivered, it felt as if she had just been doused with a bucket of ice cold water. Her gaze once again scanned the room but Mrs Bailey was nowhere to be seen. Shaking her head lightly, a tired almost hysterical laugh caught in her throat, Olivia once again headed for the door, determined to get out of the store which now felt entirely too small and confining. It was almost as if Mrs Bailey had been a ghost, appearing and disappearing like that. What with the whispering voices and the strange feelings, if she’d been back in the real world Olivia thought as she stepped back out into the street, it would have felt like a haunting. Except she realized with a jolt, they weren’t the ghosts, she was.

She sank down onto a nearby bench and leaned back against a huge Realtor advertisement. She stared up at the grey sky and released a deep sigh. What was she doing? Everything felt as if it were going wrong and she was being swept along, caught in a riptide unable to catch her breath. Unable to find anything to anchor herself to, or she thought grimly no one to anchor herself to and with that realization came the brutal truth, she needed Theo. Nothing made sense without him, she didn’t know when or how it had happened but he had become as necessary to her as the air she breathed, he was her rock, her anchor. Through everything that had happened since she had returned to Mercy he had been the one holding her together even when she hadn’t realized it.

God she missed him; she closed her eyes, squeezing them shut against the sudden onslaught of images. She missed the way he looked at her, like he couldn’t quite believe she was real and the way he smiled at her, content to just sit and listen to her waffle on about history as if it was the most riveting subject in the world. The way he touched her, how it felt to have his fingers trailing down her skin burning even as it soothed, the way he tasted and the feel and shape of his lips against hers. The way he would fold her into his arms and hold on and when he made love to her it felt as if the whole world had faded away and they were the only two people in existence.

She let out the breath she was holding and leaned forward, propping her elbows on her knees and cradling her head in her hands. She could feel the tide of grief and loss rising up in her throat, howling to get loose. She hadn’t even told him she loved him. He had been pulled to God knows where thinking that she didn’t care, that she was angry with him. She’d been selfish and ungrateful, she’d yelled at him and told him she couldn’t trust him. He must hate her, she thought miserably.

‘He’s not angry with you, you know’ a soft, comforting and painfully familiar voice spoke quietly next to her.

Olivia jolted in shock and sat up, her hands dropping limply to her thighs and her mouth falling open in stunned silence.

‘Aunt Evie?’ she whispered after what felt like an eternity.

‘Hello Olivia,’ Evelyn West smiled crossing her legs and resting her arm along the back of the bench comfortably.

‘Why are you here? How are you here? What…?’

‘I’m just visiting from,’ she pointed upwards to the cloudy sky, ‘up there.’

Olivia was lost for words, she sat numbly staring at the aunt she had spent most of her late childhood and teens thinking didn’t want her.

‘You looked like you needed a little support’ she smiled sympathetically, ‘feeling a little lost right now aren’t you?’

Olivia nodded, her eyes filling with tears and when Evie held out her arms Olivia hesitated for a second and then leaned forward into the familiar embrace. She was immediately transported back to her childhood, to the aunt she had loved, with whom she had shared a tight bond and an affinity for the woods.

‘There there sweetheart,’ Evie rocked her gently against the hot flood of tears, ‘it’s really not as bad as you think. You’re tired and your heart is sore but soon things will start looking up.’

Olivia couldn’t speak, it was as if a dam had broken and everything came flooding out, even things she didn’t know she had stored deep inside her. She cried for them all, her Nana, her mother, her father, her destiny, Theo; it was like a purge that came crashing out in a flood of tears and anguish.

Evie held her shaking and exhausted body until her harsh sobs finally slowed. She soothed her hair and crooned to her softly until her tears were no more than a few hiccups and a shaky intake of breath.

‘I guess I needed that,’ Olivia croaked.

‘I’d say,’ Evie tucked her hair behind her ear, just as she had when Olivia was a child. ‘I’ve never seen anyone so in need of a crying jag as you. You hold too much in Olivia, there’s something therapeutic about a good cry every once in a while.’

‘If you say’ Olivia sniffed, ‘I bet my face is a splotchy mess right now and it feels like my eyes are full of grit.’

‘It will pass’ Evie laughed, ‘but you needed to get that out of the way so we could talk properly.’

‘I suppose’ she sighed, ‘I’ve been behaving like a bit of a brat lately haven’t I?’

Evie watched her quietly, a small smile twitching at the corner of her mouth.

‘I’ll take your silence as a firm yes,’ Olivia raked her hair back from her face, ‘I guess I’ve been on my own for so long, so used to going my own way that…’

‘That as soon as someone comes along and tells you that you have a destiny you fight it for all its worth,’ Evie finished for her.

‘Yeah,’ she admitted quietly, ‘I never have liked being told what to do.’

‘You were like that even as a child, even before your mother betrayed us all.’

‘It’s too much’ Olivia whispered, ‘I can’t…I can’t do it. I can’t have everyone relying on me. I mean, killing a demon, finding and protecting one of the most, if not THE most powerful object in history. I’m not ready, I’m not enough.’

‘You’re more than you think you are Olivia,’ Evie shook her head. ‘I’m sorry this has fallen to you, but we rarely get to choose when destiny comes knocking. Your mother won’t stop until she has the book and Nathaniel won’t stop until he takes the book from her. If a demon lord as old and dangerous as Nathaniel gets his hands on the Book of Hell it will mean the end of days, Armageddon, the Apocalypse, whatever you want to call it. He will unleash Hell on earth and he will use Mercy as the gateway. Everyone you love will burn in fire and ash and flame. So destiny came knocking on your door instead of someone else's. She’s just asked you to save the world; are you really going to tell her no?’

‘I guess not,’ Olivia blew out a breath, ‘I have so many questions.’

‘I imagine you do and I’ll answer as much as I can, but I’m kind of on a Cinderella deal here. I had to pull some serious strings to get in here and I only have so long before my carriage turns into a pumpkin and I have to return.’

‘Okay.’

‘But there is one thing we need to clear up before anything else’ Evie told her seriously, ‘and that is to tell you I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Olivia. I was wrong.’

‘About what?’

‘I thought by keeping you away from Mercy, by refusing custody of you, I was keeping you safe. I can see now that I made a huge mistake, what you needed was your family, or what was left of it. I should have taken you and loved you for as long as my broken body was able to. I should have taught you everything I knew about our history and our magic to prepare you for what is to come. But I was selfish, I wanted you safe and happy, I wanted you to have a normal life, not bear the curse of our family. I thought I was doing what was best for you but instead I only made things harder.’

‘It’s alright Aunt Evie,’ Olivia whispered after a moment and she found much to her surprise it really was, the hard ball of resentment she had always carried deep in her gut was gone. Evie had loved her, and that was what made it alright. ‘You made the best decision you could at the time and what’s done is done, it can’t be changed.’

‘I know, but unfortunately you are coming into the middle of this mess with no proper training in magic and no real understanding of our history. You need to listen to Bridget, she really is here to help you and if you give her the chance you may find she understands what you are going through better than anyone.’