Deliverance (29 page)

I’d feel better about this plan if Kateri wasn’t looking at me so dubiously. “Try it,” I tell her.

She closes her eyes and starts humming to herself. At first, nothing happens. “Don’t give up,” I tell her. “Open up your heart to the energy of the elements. Of the earth beneath your feet.”

Her chanting becomes louder and louder. Though the essence of nature is connected to that of the soul, it is not something I, myself, am connected to. Still, as her chanting grows louder I swear I can feel it.

She stops and looks at me with her eyes wide.

“See, you could feel it, couldn’t you?”

She nods.

I dig in my pocket and pull out a page I ripped out from an old book about mystical invocations. It hadn’t been hard to find but it would have been useless for someone like me. “We will make a spell.”

“A spell?”

I nod. “Yes, it is a very old thing.”

“But I’ve never done my magic with spells before.”

“The spell does not change your magic, it just helps it focus. You could figure out how to do the same thing without it, but it would take a lot more essence and a lot of time to figure it out.”

I point to the house we are watching. The same large mansion we’d gone to for the party. I had followed Leyli’s essence here. It was easy, now that my own essence is back. I give another thought to the necklace. Who had done that?

“First the birds,” I say. “Then, the spell.”

She hums louder and louder until she is chanting. This time the essence isn’t tangible like when I had asked her to practice. This is a different way of summoning, a way I don’t understand. But I don’t have to wait long to see the effects. Clouds of birds fly towards us. They circle around us for a little while, and then start attacking the building. There are thousands of them diving from the sky. I want to stand and watch them but we don’t have time.

“Okay, you need to really concentrate on the words I read out. Okay?”

She nods.

“And concentrate on me.”

“Yes, hurry,” she says nervously.

I read the words. They make little sense, but they aren’t supposed to. They are more like a mathematical formula. Patterns that channel the magic of nature to do what we need it to do. To shift the very air around me to make me nearly invisible. Between the bird distraction and my camouflage I should be able to rescue Aude and Leyli.

At first nothing happens. Birds are still flying towards the house, but nothing else. I’m going to miss the opportunity. I recite the words again, this time lending them a thread of my own essence to somehow try and mingle with hers. I don’t know if it helped or it just takes a while for the magic to happen, but I feel something different now. I look at my arms and legs but I can see myself perfectly clearly.

She stops the humming and I stop chanting. I will have to go without camouflage. We’re out of time.

“Hurry up! I don’t know how long it will hold,” she says.

“But it didn’t work.”

“Of course it worked. I can barely see you. You are blurry, somehow. Now hurry up.”

I run towards the house. People have gathered on the street to watch the spectacle. Good. They’ll add to the diversion.

I start by climbing over the garden wall, and follow the string of essence I had latched to Leyli as soon as I’d figured out where she was. I don’t have to look far. There is chaos in the gardens. Several young women stand together while birds fly around them. One girl throws her hands in the air a group of them falls from the sky.

I shudder.

Crouched against the garden wall, I sidestep slowly, not wanting to move too much and be spotted. I see Leyli but Aude isn’t with her. My heart hurts at seeing my best friend and doing nothing for her but I have to get Aude first; she’s the target. I spot her fairly easily thanks to the bright red strips in her hair. I continue my ninja walk in her direction.

When another group of birds fall from the sky, I use the confusion to grab her. She doesn’t fight me but instead lets me take her to the wall. Her eyes are empty like a dead animal’s. There is something wrong with her essence. She’s hardly responsive. I need to get her out as fast as possible. I look to Leyli and send an essence feeler her way. She’s better than Aude. Her type of essence doesn’t come from inside, so she’s not affected as badly. They can’t drain her like they can Aude.

I hesitate for a moment more, but I know I have to leave her behind. I can’t get Aude to climb the wall in her state and I certainly can’t carry her over. I could levitate her but the amount of essence that would take would draw way too much attention. The entrance is about ten feet away and I know I just have to risk it. I pull Aude towards the entrance and she follows me without hurry. She almost falls a few times when I try to move too fast.

When we’re finally at the door, it won’t open. I push my weight against it a few times, but I have to use my essence to open it. The moment I unleash my power, a shrill noise sounds in my head. I set off some sort of alarm. I look back and see dozens of sets of eyes on me.

I push the door open with all my might and shove Aude outside. I start to pull her across the street but something freezes us. As if the air is too thick to keep moving. With every step I try to take, the air feels thicker and I seem weaker.

I can counter this. These are just annoying tricks to someone with my experience. I close my eyes and search within myself. I see the holes. The places where I’m weak. The places they’ve latched on to. I concentrate on them and let my essence unwind and fill these holes. I block them. But the air is still thick. I still can’t force us through.

And they’re coming closer. I try to shield us and raise my arms over my head. Just then, the ground starts trembling. I know I didn’t do it. And from the reaction of those chasing me, they didn’t either. This is Kateri’s magic. She’s given me a window and I grab it. I run towards her, dragging Aude with me, and we rush into Garnier’s rental car, slamming the doors and stepping on the gas.

We are free for now. I have found success. But for what? So that I can give everything up to Aude? I didn’t even rescue Leyli. 

The garden’s peacefulness contrasted starkly with the beating in my heart. I didn’t want to do this. She had convinced me it was the right thing, but I didn’t want to do the right thing. I passed by the peaceful fountain and watched the water cascade as essence would.

How could she not want to live forever? How could I not take it personally? She had refused the chance to be with me forever.

She stood in the same spot she had been in when she told me the news. This time, she wasn’t alone. Guillaume held Aude close to him and whispered in her ear. Pareen stood near them, still dauntingly beautiful. How could this creature cease to exist because of us?

I approached them slowly, letting the serenity calm my nerves. Taking deep breaths to prevent the tears forming in my eyes.

I joined Nakissa and she looked at me with eyes wide with emotion.

“Are you sure?”

She nodded.

“But what about us?”

She put her hand in mine and stretched out to rest her chin on my shoulder. “We have lots of time to figure it out,” she said.

“We just lost eternity.”

She shrugged. “Don’t think of it this way.”

“How should I react?”

“You could hug me.”

I wrapped my arms around her and we watched Aude and Guillaume together. Aude was back to normal now that she was away from Ramtin. Nothing a little rest and essence couldn’t fix. And soon, she would be better than normal.

Pareen came towards us and I hugged Nakissa closer to me. Her hair smelled of cherry, her body was warm as she leaned into me.

“You’ll have to perform the ceremony,” Pareen said to Nakissa.

“Thank you, Pareen.”

“I have lived long enough. Just as you have chosen to live a finite existence, I have too.”

 Nakissa nodded.

“It’s time.”

Nakissa detached herself from my arms and walked to the middle of the garden where Aude and the statue waited.

“Is it going to hurt?” Aude asked.

“No, not really,” Nakissa answered. Aude knelt on the ground and held on to the statue, while Pareen stood behind her, holding on to Aude’s shoulders.

Guillaume and Aude exchanged a smile and my stomach flipped in jealousy. Why did Guillaume always get everything he wanted?

Why couldn’t I, for once, get what I want?

Nakissa gave me a small smile of her own and then turned her attention to the scene at hand. They stood still for a while and at first I didn’t think anything was happening, but then I felt it. So much essence permeated the air around us; it pushed me to my knees.

Away from the center of the garden, Kateri and Old Man Robert began to dance in circles and chant and the air became clearer. I felt less sick. Antoine came towards me and placed his hand on my shoulder.

“She’s special.”

“Yes, she is a witch.”

“I meant more than that. She has such strong love and compassion. What she is giving up right now is not something many people would give up.”

“I know. I don’t understand why she’d leave me.”

Antoine searched me with his eyes. Then he smiled slowly. “I think she is giving you exactly what you need.”

“What is that?”

“The girl you fell in love with.”

I considered his words for a moment while watching her. Were Nagissa the Gargoyle and Nakissa the girl so different? Would she be able to remain herself if she went back to being a Gargoyle? She had been Nagissa for so long, while Nakissa had only existed for sixteen years. Maybe the girl was what I needed.

The scene in front of me hadn’t changed much and with the shamans absorbing the essence into the elements, the air didn’t even feel different anymore. So, it was a big surprise when suddenly Pareen began unraveling. Her fiery essence like bright orange ribbons faded into blue and disintegrated into the air.

Pareen no longer existed, and, with her, Aude had also disappeared. Now Nakissa would have to wake her. Just as Aude had woken us from the church tower in Montreal what seemed like a lifetime ago.

 Nakissa fell to her knees and Aude began changing. First into the magnificent mythological creature of her statue, and then into herself. Small, beautiful Aude. Standing naked in front of us. The same girl who had woken us and Guillaume’s heart, yet now an immortal creature.

Our family of Gargoyles was back up to four.